I have been rereading some of the poems of Robert Frost (1874-1963), perhaps for the first time in this millennium, so I am experiencing his work a quarter-century older, hopefully wiser, and certainly more curious about the human condition. Few poets can write as Frost does about our proclivity toward pensiveness ("Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"), our spirit of adventure ("The Road Not Taken"), our lament of passing time ("Nothing Gold Can Stay"), our tendency toward judging humanity ("Fire and Ice"), or our heartbreak in enduring loss ("Home Burial").
I came across a 2-stanza, 1-sentence, 8-line, 34-word gem, "Dust of Snow," from Frost's Collected Poems. In such a short space, he shows why critics universally regard him as a master of the American vernacular. From The way a crow / Shook down on me to save some part / Of a day, the verse seems like plainspeak, merely a matter-of-fact statement made in idle passing, until it repeats and repeats in the memory like a sacred credo.
If you read these six referenced poems at the Poetry Foundation website (53 of Frost's are there), start with "Dust of Snow."
