Nature, Naturey, Natureson: Where nature is a metaphor for life and growing older, but not realizing how old you really are

A lovingly mocking poem inspired by Robert Frost

I have been in speech therapy for my long-haul Covid symptoms of brain fog and memory loss. One activity my therapist is quite fond of, is reading me Robert Frost poems line by line and making me repeat back each line from memory. But also synthesize the meaning of each line and talk about what it means when it’s finished. Now, while I used to be EXCELLENT at memorization, I have NEVER been good at dissecting poems.

Alas, this is what we do quite regularly. He loves Robert Frost, and he gave me the assignment of writing something that isn’t about me (how dare anyone suggest that I should stop talking about myself.) Anywho, to fulfill the assignment, but to also be a pest about having to write something that isn’t about me, I am writing a Robert Frost parody. I would like to dedicate this poem to Google’s thesaurus, because without it, 87% of this poem would not have been possible, as this is not how my straight-forward, simplistic brain works.

Once upon a whispy wanton tree

I looked out over water and happened to see

A newly harvested boy was staring at me

He didn’t wince upon seeing my grizzled face

Instead he looked upon me with curious grace

He studied my wrinkles without abase

I wondered how this boy came to be so deep in the wood

Without his progenitors nearby wherest we stood

I supposed locating them was something I should

Since I was such an old billowy decrepit man

Who had come to be the feral hermit of this land

I wasn’t even sure if I had a leg to stand

I gathered my bearings to see what could be done

About this crisp little chap who mightest be equal to one

As a brawny strapping gust of zephyr did over me run

My balance it took and barely did I regain

Upon which time the heavens parted and poured rain

Occasioning the tree limbs to falter, fret and deign

Whenst I returned to my wonted gait

I turned to see the bairn dissipate

I feared in helping him, I may be too late

Where his untouched by time visage once had been

There were now ripples, waves, and drops therein

Twas gone - not his eyes, his cheeks, nor his chin

Upon this I realized in utter discomfiture

Twas not a babe I had seen so new and pure

Thusly, all my unease and consternation this did cure

However, only a moment did pass before I had cause to inquire

If this was not a babe I had seen, what had transpired

Surely my eyes were playing tricks and were wont to retire

It materialized then that I registered the deception

I had been peering into water and was false in my perception

Twas not a babe, but was a pool of water and my own reflection

Why did my reflection look like a one year old boy?

Because I am old and weird and live in the woods by myself and I only ever look at or talk to nature and I am a hermit and I spend too much time pondering about my youth and how I have aged so much and everything needs to be a metaphor about birth and death in the context of nature so I am 70 years old and climbing up trees and looking into water and seeing my reflection, but thinking I am a baby boy and maybe the next time I leave the woods and go into town I could consider getting some meds.

The End.

Fun fact, I chose the word “wanton”, not knowing what it meant, and looked it up after I wrote this, and saw one of it’s definitions was “sexually unrestrained” and I decided that a sexually unrestrained tree was EXACTLY what I meant and what this poem needed. And honestly, you can’t convince me that Robert Frost didn’t also appreciate a sexually unrestrained tree.