March 26, 1974 in  General   

R.Frost 100th B'day

The air was soft, the ground still cold.
In wet dull pastures where I strolled
Was something I could not believe.
Dead grass appeared to slide and heave,
Though still too frozen-flat to stir,
And rocks to twitch, and all to blur.
What was this rippling of the land?
Was matter getting out of hand
And making free with natural law?
I stopped and blinked, and then I saw
A fact as eerie as a dream.
There was a subtle flood of stream
Moving upon the face of things.
It came from standing pools and springs
And what of snow was still around;
It came of winter's giving ground
So that the freeze was coming out,
As when a set mind, blessed by doubt,
Relaxes into mother-wit.
Flowers, I said, will come of it.

By Richard Wilbur

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Other poems by Richard Wilbur:

• A Fable
• A World Without Objects is a Sensible Emptiness
• Advice to a Prophet
• Boy at the Window
• Epistemology
• Exeunt
• For K.R. on her Sixtieth Birthday
• Having Misidentified A Wildflower
• In a Churchyard
• In the Smoking Car
• Juggler
• June Light
• Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World
• March 26, 1974
• Matthew VIII,28 ff.
• Museum Piece
• Orchard Trees, January
• Parable
• Puritans
• Riddle
• Shame
• The Beautiful Changes
• The Prisoner of Zenda
• The Riddle
• The Ride
• To the Etruscan Poets
• Transit
• Wedding Toast
• Worlds