This Poet May Be the New Robert Frost

Adam Sedia’s nature-inspired verse, insightful reflections, and plain style are reminiscent of the great American poet Robert Frost.

A statue of Robert Frost on the campus of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Public Domain

Urban Butterfly

What business have you here, In acrid air, to strain Through jagged glass and steel On a cracked asphalt plain.

Faint, shady memory Of vernal vales of green— Wind-tossed, long-lost, you fly Among this tortured scene,

Whose weight could pulverize Your grace with heartless ease; And yet you flutter, blithe And nonchalant—to tease?

Distant Thunder

Oppressive heat in heavy air; Oppressive light from summer skies; White clouds glow with a garish glare, __Menacing as they rise;

Oppressive stillness reigns: no breeze Rustles the leafy, drooping boughs, And only rarely from the trees __A lazy chirp resounds.

Then through the silence, faint at first, Yet rolling through the stagnant calm, The rumble of a thunder-burst __Sounds from a distant realm—

So distant, yet so ominous— The roar at which Earth quakes in fear, The rage of angry gods that draws __Inexorably near.

Hail, thunder! Welcome, roaring storm! I greet your wild and roiling violence! Drive out this crushing tedium, __Oppressing with its silence!