Dissecting a Line from Frost
by Neil Leadbeater

(after The woods are lovely, dark and deep
… Robert Frost “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”)

‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep.’

‘Let’s pull that apart,’
by which she meant, unravel it
as if it were a ball of thread:
three adjectives that are descriptors of
impenetrability, mystery
and enchantment…

but the class of ’63
is not in the mood for forensics —
not for them the clinical approach:
they would rather admire
the surface aesthetic
and leave things be.

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