Frost Notes

Anthology

Helen Sewell Johnson

The second anthology issue of Frost Notes concludes with Helen Sewell Johnson's poem occasioned by an actual "Frost sighting" that took place during her undergraduate days. She writes, "In the late Fifties Robert Frost spent a week each spring at my college, Agnes Scott.  Memories of his visits are accompanied by regrets that, preoccupied with youthful self-consciousness, I took too little advantage of his availability."

Remembering Robert Frost

Collegially ingathered for a week,
We listened breathless for the poet to speak. 
We clustered near his famous feet. Our skirts' 
Pleats petaled the floor with circular blooms, 
Our sweatered bodies: flowering centers. We sat. 
He spoke, said what he had to say, then offered 
To answer any questions we might proffer.

That was many years ago
When we were still girls.

He came each year to visit our professor
Who pelicaned out our literary fare
Through puffy lips as tight-pursed as the back 
End of a chicken. She managed his schedules, 
Prompted favorite readings, interrupted
Our shy silence to instruct, intoned:
''They want to know what makes a pome a pome."

That was years and years ago,
And we were only girls.

He made response; my memory is clear:
His aged face, stooped shoulders, snow white hair, 
Her lips, her tight bunned hair, brown tweeded suit. 
And blasted into memory as well
Her words, enunciating pome, not poem.
Yet of his sharp heard wisdom my bereft
Brain imprints no inkling of his gift.

It all was so long ago
When I was but a girl.

Now, years later, curiosity intense
A deep desire to know how poems make sense
Elbows its way to consciousness and pleads
For information on that critical question.
Truths, drowned in air of youth's preoccupations, Taunt stale imaginings. Memory, inform
my age! What makes a poem a poem?

Unanswered question, answered years ago 

When I was just a girl.

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 Poem copyright 2005 by Helen Sewell Johnson