Memories of Robert Frost

 
The path bent its way through the wood  
I'd had a choice some yards back,  
The fork, (was it the same?)  
Left and right  
Just like the hay-fork I carried.  
I'd found it further back.  
The thick and solid handle  
Of the early path, now two  
One brown with mud  
The other flat and green  
Strolled before.  
It was winter.  
 
Who had thrown away the fork?  
It had been there a long time  
The handle black with mould.    
Had it been discarded last fall?  
(A strange tool to find  
In two thousand five  
With its mechanisations.  
A break-down perhaps?)  
Chucking bales hard work  
Could have thrown it away,  
But I hate waste.  
 
The sky was blue and steely  
Could see it through  
The silhouette branches  
The wind too! It was three,  
the sun shone through the trunks  
Darkness some time away  
So I took the muddy path.......  
Something wrong with the green  
What did the others know?
 
Only an inch of rain this month  
There'd been five the last.  
The hollow path,still damp,  
Slipped its way between  
The shallow banks  
Which promised spring and yellow.  
Above, the khaki green  
Of nervous buds,  
Telling of an early spring  
Could just be seen......  
Winter afternoons so silent.
 
I was alone, Or was I?  
I knew from the 'prints  
Someone, or ones, walked before,  
And there was time for those behind.  
Of course the trees could give support  
I could always lean,  
At least awhile.
 
Looking up I saw a redundant mistletoe,  
evergreen, viable only once a year.  
The path was on the woodland edge  
The centre too dense to walk,  
birds sang joy and defiance  
Safe from hawks and me.
 
"Follow me home  
I have tables aload with food  
Boxes dry and square  
Better than those ragged nests  
You exhaust yourselves for days  
And stick with mud"  
(But of course they are  
Square and painted green  
And not in a wood)  
"I love your wood,but do not envy  
My home is warm  
The shops a yard away,"
 
I began this walk a time back  
There's been no rush  
Even so it's been too quick  
I have no wood like theirs,
Browns and blacks and steel blue sky.  
 
Four weeks the spring will come  
(The corn shows green)  
In the fall I shall return  
To feel the autumn sun,  
See gold and ginger leaves  
Rowan-red and chestnut brown  
Un-zip my coat, left home the gloves  
This winter wood too cold.