Thought Frost Could Not Surprise Me Poem by Tom J. Mariani

Robert Frost is one of the ones
That got me started
When the only poems I would read
Had to be assigned

'Read pages 21 to 28 and
on Monday be prepared
to discuss campare and contrast.'
Yeah - yeah more homework

Thank God Robert was in there
Somewhere between
Pages 21 to 28
I don't recall which one grabbed me

But he had me looking for more
On my own nothing due by Friday
We talked about doubt and
Dealing with death 'OUT, OUT-'

This was before I met Macbeth
Robert was talking to me
Not down at me
I thought I knew him

I've invited him to family funerals
'Reluctance' got him a ticket
To my great-grandmother's
'Bravado' to her daughter's

'Devotion' for my father
'Never Again Would Bird's
Song Be The Same' shared
With my mother aunts in chorus

Today he surprised me
Found some humor in there
That I had read over before
I tripped over his cow

'...IN APPLE TIME
As a very young youngster
I was at our family ranch
When it had cattle and apples

Part of my job
Was to keep them apart
Robert shows in this poem
He knew why better than I

While she the cow
May scorn 'a pasture
withering to the root.'
He knows what happens

When as he describes
'Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools
A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit.'
Don't look for Adam and Eve

Allthough they may have been on his mind
Get out of the way when 'She leaves'
the apples 'bitten when she has to fly.'
AKA The green apple dirties

That's what my great-grandmother
Called the affliction when I had eaten
Too many free apples off the trees
AKA The back door trots

Quickest way to the outhouse
It was more important
And not as funny when
A cow would get into the orchard

As Robert ends his poem
'She bellows on a knoll against the sky.
Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry'
If it's taken me this long to get this

What hope is there for generations hence
Whoes apples all have bar codes on each one
In season they are not free
They are going to overthink this poem