Re-reading Robert Frost on my 75th birthday

I’m standing in a yellow wood.
Not a brown or crimson leaf anywhere.

I’m standing near a woodpile.
Watching a bright green snake
disappear into the undergrowth.

Listening at dusk, to the music
of phoebe… oven bird… thrush.

A blue butterfly happens by.
A white spider sits—like a secret—
on a heal-all, waiting to catch moths
flying thither in the night.

And me? I'm waiting for stars.
Keeping the universe alone.
No road here, trod or untrod.
No fork in a trail to divide me.

Just standing in a yellow wood.
Waiting for the leaves to decide
what to do next.

This poem first appeared in Exit 13.
Used here with the author’s permission.