By Carol Frost in Ploughshares 13:1, 1987

“Acorns”

Last night some acrons fell

and woke me as they struck

the roof. Each acorn rolled,

a die cast down the shakes,

to tell my chances in

the sun and in the snow

to come. What might have been

a grief, I didn’t go

to look for in the night.

I closed my eyes to sleep—

beneath the roof, the oak,

and hidden stars that keep

their silver courses even

when the foreverness of snow

glazes the window pane

with a cold brilliance so

it seems the world is frozen

in place. I told myself,

as plain as lettering

in almanacs each life

is marked by green and dying

seasons, and in the dead

of winter the stonecracking

wind over neighbor ground

is now surprise; nor spring

in the flash of a wing going

around a corner. Now

as ever, sweet dark slipping

through my fingers, time goes,

revolving like a door

between two worlds

we have to leave to enter.

Thanks very much, civilize me. I like this poem much better than Pastan's.

Mary Ann

Hi, civilize me - I like this poem. I particularly like some of the imagery, the acorn "a die cast down the shakes" and portents of spring in the "flash of a wing."

Part of the poem confused me, so I went to Ploughshares online and was lucky enough to be able to read it there where I discovered a small but crucial misprint in your copy. Here's the corrected version --

in the dead

of winter the stonecracking

wind over neighbor ground

is no surprise; nor spring

in the flash of a wing going

around a corner.

But I'm glad you posted the poem; I haven't read Carol Frost in years, and I do like this poem.

Mary Ann

Another fine poem about acorns, but I find it interesting that the fruit, as it were, is presented as an item born of nature that constitutes an interruption on human thinking; in both poems the falling acorn the fallen nut acts as an intervention in the stream of thought that seeks to assimilate the given world and reintroduces the narrators to some kind of reality principle. And certainly both disturbances offer up their chains of association, given us in different styles, Frost, a worthy lyric poet, addresses her experience in reflection after the small event;

Last night some acrons fell
and woke me as they struck
the roof. Each acorn rolled,
a die cast down the shakes,
to tell my chances in
the sun and in the snow
to come. What might have been
a grief, I didn’t go
to look for in the night.

A sweetly singing opening for the poem, and one that tells us that her stanzas are neatly framed, artfully arranged, careful as to tone and color. Something about this reminds of an Impressionist painting, where the ambiguity is sheathed in a soft , muted hue which makes what one is confronted with more mysterious and alluring than threatening. It seems like a description of the things in the yard assuming their natural subtle relations.

Pastan's poem is all about the rush of sensation, I think, the dramatic influx of detail and the rapid unfolding of a associations of a mind negotiating the changes. A more collected memory will perhaps form later, but the appeal for me of Pastan's piece was her success in capturing the sheer speed with which the imagination can create contexts and associations , and the speed with which those fresh metaphors can be altered, changed, transformed.

Thanks for posting Carol Frost.

Good eye on that; I'm glad to have the correction pointed out. Isn't a nice poem? Somewhat more deeply felt.