Robert Frost

Robert Frost is one of the poets I remember most from school 25+ years ago. The main thing that is most appealing to me about Frost is his use of nature and emotion. Typically I do not see most men having a connection of such, so I am impressed with his inner depth of himself and of his natural surroundings. So far in all of our readings, this is the only writer that almost taps into my generation since I was born in the 60’s and Frost died in 1963.
One of my favorites of Frost’s poems was “Fire and Ice.” We all have that understanding that has somehow been embedded in us that one day the world is going to end. Depending on how and what you believe can have a factor on which you believe to be true. Christians and Bible believers tell and believe that the world will end with fire coming down from Heaven. I also believe that to be true, but many think otherwise. I think the same falls true with Frost as he is making a statement that shows he has heard that fire will end the earth all his life, but like many others, not all believe in the Bible. To me, this poem shows worldly variations and either way, an end is an end.
“Acquainted with the Night” seems to me to have been written with much depth. With night comes darkness and like with some of his other poems, he seemed to have dealt with depression from time to time. In this poem, he talks of rain which to me represents tears and as he “outwalked the furthest city lights” tells me that as he tried to run from it, yet it was still there. The luminary clock appears to be the moon but as it proclaimed that time was neither wrong nor right tells me that he was unsure of his time of life or death; either way both fell in the darkness of the night which is his sadness and depression.
The “Home Burial” was a very sad poem but as a mother, I could feel the mother’s pain. I could not imagine losing a child myself, but I have two close friends that have; one who lost her son at birth and one that watched her son get hit and killed by a school bus at the age of 5. I have seen a mother’s grief and a father’s as well. Men and women seem to handle the death of a child much differently, but in the end, they both hurt and grieve and carry it the rest of their lives, just as the man and woman in this poem. In this poem, the mother seems angry at the father for not expressing the same grief that she feels. She seems to also be angry at him for having the ability to bury their child as well. I think Frost was trying to somehow show that in such an even as the death of a child, it causes much pain and it can even tear the mother and father apart. But I was glad to see that even though she wanted to go and flee all the pain and memories that he was not willing to just let her go and he would do whatever it takes to have and keep her.