Gathering Poems

Gathering Poems
(A tribute to Robert Frost)


When you said,
“I shan’t be gone long.”
I knew better
it was time to gather
poems

You left in the morning
and in the morning glow
to pick spear shaped flowers
in a saturated meadow
to pick where none could miss
a thousand orchises

You left off
to watch a boy swing in birches
kicking his way through the air
to the ground
you wait for Truth to break in
and lightly touch down

You will climb to the vantage point
where cattle keep the lawn
and see the far off homes of men
and on another hill their tombs
then smell the earth and look
into the crater of an ant

Then return?
You shan’t.

Because a wall needs mending
and apples need picking
and the pasture spring needs clearing