The Darkness of Frost

As a kid growing up in Vermont, you can't avoid learning about Robert Frost. He manages to wiggle his way into the curriculum every year until graduation. Forget the fact that he was born in California and grew up in Massachusetts, his poems have come to embody the spirit of my home state. Yes, he earned it by living in his tiny cabin (which I've been in!) and penning nature poems, but I think he's generally misunderstood...or maybe oversimplified.

I used to cringe when Robert Frost entered poetry conversations, but that was before I understood him. I think his reputation as "a nature poet" has undercut some of his poetic power, particularly his darker side. Yes, it's possible to write in rhymes about leaves and fences and flowers and still be dark. In fact, when you look at nature closely, which Tennyson described as being "red in tooth and claw," you couldn't imagine something darker. And it doesn't have to have actual teeth or claws to induce a chill. At least not for Frost.

Consider this Frost poem, one of my favorites, "Spring Pools":

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods --
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.

Aside from the obvious darker elements of this poem, I love the line: "These flowery waters and these watery flowers." Chills. Only Frost, who actually had a naturalist's eye and a poet's heart, could take something as innocuous as a tree's roots being watered by a puddle of melted snow and imbue it with morality. Nature takes from nature. It's selfish, cold, powerful...and, well, DARK. Welcome to the real Robert Frost. Not so quaint now, is he?

For similar examples I also recommend reading these Frost poems: "Out, Out--," "Fire and Ice," "Nothing Gold Can Stay," and another favorite of mine, "Design."