the only poem that springs to mind immediately, concerning robert frost, is the road less travelled (or not taken). and i don't have a copy before me to post here! let's help isabel find the piece about the tree and winter. i'm clueless at the moment but will do some checking!

That's what I posted in "Poems of Loss", maybe I'll find the novel where it'r cited: I remember something like an apple tree in winter (???), which should not bloom, otherwise it could froze...mmh, something like that. It was a bit sad...but expressed a feeling I had some time ago, when I lost somebody very close to me... That's why I want to find it.

Isabel, I'm gonna do an altavista.com search for an anthology of Frost's works, and if I cannot sort through them enough to find your poem, I'll post the URL and you can look...in fact, I will post the URL in any case. I'm off hunting....

Isabel....this is the best one of all because it includes a poem search if you only know a few words or a line...go to it! http://redfrog.norconnect.no/~poems/poets/robert_frost.html

I liked this one particularly: To the Thawing Wind by Robert Frost - 1913 Come with rain, O loud Southwester! Bring the singer, bring the nester; Give the buried flower a dream; Make the settled snow-bank steam; Find the brown beneath the white; But whate'er you do to-night, Bathe my window, make it flow, Melt it as the ice will go; Melt the glass and leave the sticks Like a hermit's crucifix; Burst into my narrow stall; Swing the picture on the wall; Run the rattling pages o'er; Scatter poems on the floor; Turn the poet out of door.

Wolf, this one's for you: The Road not Taken by Robert Frost - 1916 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

My dad used to recite this to me when I was quite young. Mending Wall by Robert Frost - 1914 Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'. Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

I did this while an undergrad. It's been published in the parody journal "Poultry." Stopping by Words on a Stolen Evening (with apologies to Robert Frost) copyright 1993, John Burnett Whose words these are I think I know. He's sitting in his office, though. He's so preoccupied with self, I'll steal his words right off the shelf. The poetry prof must think me queer. I plagiarize without a fear. I burgle meter, pilfer rhyme, Take what I want and put it here. His words are lovely, much they say, That's why I'm taking them away. I'll turn them in and get an "A." I'll turn them in and get an "A."

Oh Yes! I much prefer your little ode to RF with apologies. But, I think none are needed! You are so good at the feel and rhythm of poetry - you have the soul of one, too, you know! But, I knew that all along (and I am seldom wrong about these things, as well.)

thanks for the road not taken, john! and your parody is good...did you get an a?

Yes I did, wolfie...as well as a published poem after the class was through.

*woohoo*

(John, aren't you the one who never got any grade other than an A ?!)

Thanks for the link to the Frost-poems, Marcia! I haven't found it yet, but I won't give up!

Just click on this link, Isabel! http://redfrog.norconnect.no/~poems/poets/robert_frost.html