The Armful -- Robert Frost

Guest poem sent in by Pavithra Sankaran

Something Genevieve Aquino said about packing and putting things away [1]
reminded me of this quiet gem by Robert Frost:

(Poem #1935) The Armful For every parcel I stoop down to seize I lose some other off my arms and knees, And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns Extremes too hard to comprehend at once, Yet nothing I should care to leave behind. With all I have to hold with hand and mind And heart, if need be, I will do my best To keep their building balanced at my breast. I crouch down to prevent them as they fall; Then sit down in the middle of them all. I had to drop the armful in the road And try to stack them in a better load. -- Robert Frost

A graceful, calm poem about clumsy, inadequate but all too human attempts
at gathering and keeping everything that matters. As I grow older and watch
others a generation older than me fade into their sunset years, I realise
unhappily that neither the human mind nor heart really have all the space
we imagine (and hope) they do. But if there is indeed a way of stacking
memory and other love-tinsel in "better load", would that I learn it one
day!

Pavithra Sankaran

[1] see the comments to poem #1935:
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/minstrels/message/2018