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Diane Mills
Lock Haven
"Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."
--Robert Frost, 1923
Robert Frost wrote this poem in 1923, and he was awarded the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry the following year.
This spring, while perusing a small book store in Tarrytown, N.Y., I purchased "The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness and Joy," edited by John Brehm.
My intention was to read one poem each day, as a way of finding peace amid the constant barrage of negative news and the threats to our way of life.
When I read Frost's poem this morning, I felt it carried a poignancy beyond what he may have originally intended. To me, it resonates as a prediction of the impermanence of our own "Eden" -- the United States of America -- endangered by a lust for gold in the heart of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It feels as if he is willing to trade our precious democracy for a handful of gold.
(Even Judas Iscariot betrayed for silver.)