Robert Frost - beginning and ending

Dan Chiasson wrote a beautiful poem starting with a line from Robert Frost. Big Frank will try the same, only while Chiasson began with Frost, Big Frank will end with him.

First of all here is Chiasson’s poem:

Poem Beginning With a Line From Frost
By Dan Chiasson

as if regret were in it and were sacred
as if regret itself were a river a want

that was the source of the river flowed
through the river, more and more the more

the river thickened towards the boring lake
where what stirred once was terribly quiet

This is indistinguishable from happiness.
This standing water was a mindful current once.

Once was a mindful current now leaden still;
it is ourselves we most resemble, now. Now

the maples that had been nowhere gather. When
we look down what we look down on is our own.


A Poem Ending With Two Lines from Frost
By Big Frank Dickinson

The Rules of Engagement were set,
But this isn't a war they controlled.
It was in fact disengagement, retreat;
Halt; . . . be at unease . . .
One heart no longer seeking
And one beating, not through.
If all battles followed these rules,
No casualties would ensue, for there
Would be no meeting of forces –
No mutual assured destruction, no
Mutual assured anything -
And so with nowhere to go,
One force marched in formation:
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question “Whither?”