Placard

At the Grave of Robert Frost, North Bennington.

This is a poem I wrote a draft for last March while visiting Robert Frost's grave for the third time. His grave is several miles from my former residence in North, Bennington, VT.

The title "Placard" draws its inspiration from a different poet's poem:  Robinson Jeffers's early poem "Placard," which I found in a book of his early poems (which are rarely republished) while taking a break from recording the first draft of my musical song cycle "Birth-Dues" while at Tor House. Jeffers's poem "Placard" was on my mind as I communed with Frost's grave last year. 

I will perform a rendition of "Birth-Dues" this coming Saturday 3/30 at 6pm in the Gordon Chapel at Old South Church (apart of the perimeter of Copley square) at 645 Boylston Street, MA. If you're in the Greater Boston Area, you are most certainly encouraged to come through!

About an hour ago EST, Robert Frost's 150th Birthday concluded. Frost (b. March 26, 1874) died on January 29, 1963. Robinson Jeffers (b. January 10, 1887) died on January 20, 1962. They lived a similar era. 

Across the Continental United States near each coast in a same period of history these distinct poets were honing similar commitments to expression via poetry. Both men were committed deeply to their poetic craft, the subject of which was often deeply inspired by the natural world. They were both committed to clear use of language; neither write pretentiously. Both were inspired by natural awe. They explored "nature" in their lives and in their work and in many ways acted according to values proposed in poems they wrote. Jeffers confronted California's mid-coast, the nature he was most formed by. The environment Frost confronted was the Northeastern corner, New England. 

Robert Frost and Robinson Jeffers were able to become well-regarded as poets in part because they had support from people in their lives who believed in their work. 

If you appreciate the poems I author which I share in "Of Flightless Doves" and if you would like to witness this Substack register more forms, including a podcast on poetry, please consider becoming a paying subscriber.  

Enjoy this meditation. 

---

Stimulating on the Grave I ask
, you profit, Frost? to share 
so widely? phrasing for a reef, I think
of how smoke desires 

habit for the will; 
a roof of preserved church leaking the snow, 
slime shifts, painters excise the molds 
from balustrade's paint oils. 

I blistered here to this head stone, 
limping along for the rhymes, 
I blistered to this poem's placard, 
drugged before I reached the inclines

where the snow compacted, 
made sediment cold onto the lip 
as none your pretty rhymes would want. 
are poems at the exchange 

most valuable, I ask 
at crisis of a summoning exhale,
smoke swirls.
I ask archly how can it be that this life thrives

embraceable only with sedatives and methamphetamines, 
betel nut and lime, wormwood or wine, 

Heroin, Cocoa, Mezcal, 
Peyote, Cannabinoids,  
Psilocybin, Caffeinated Tea, 
Coffee, Codeine  

is what we value recalcitrant to be extracted?