Frances M. Frost

PERMIT the stubborn bone that hives content and sorrow, rage and dream, foreknowledge of the blow that drives apart the cunning-jointed seam. Permit the doomed skull time to free the brain's bright swarm of gold and black: let air reclaim each velvet [...]

Come down, grey cloud, and stop the winter's going! O cloud, of feathery rain, on the tree of air Break again and cover the earth with blowing South-slanted silver! Smother the dark loam where The soft green fire of Spring is kindled, let This peril [...]

The blowing, small-leafed bough Of the earlier year, bends only a naked stem, Silver against this silver day. And now The ferns are frost-tipped, and the roots of them Are caught in bitter ground with roots of flowers Which, with a small sound, crumb [...]

GRASS HARVEST What wind now in the long hot summer morning Sends the pine boughs plunging down and stirs The tall, sky-reaching firs To slow designs of darkness? What wind now Is a foam and a surge of silver over the grass While the mowers pause to l [...]

Here in the stern dark house Of loam, the trees stretch boughs Of roots that hunger downward, roots that keep A pact with silence, a covenant with sleep. Under the leaf mould, under The intricate small wonder Of fern and blossom, the roots go down to [...]

At the night's end, when the high pools in the mountains hold Inverted boughs of shadow, and water follows Forever the underwinds between the blossoming rocks, We arise to morning, we arise from the strong dark hollows Of sleep to stride upon the [...]