I searched the history of grass,
Beneath hawk-shadows blowing past.
I learned the timelessness of stone;
Saw forest-flesh and forest-bone
Reach briefly up, go swiftly down,
Crash in green, dissolve to brown.
Taught by decay and schooled by molder,
I can turn a stoic shoulder
To beauty spiking searching eyes
And breasts defenselessly unwise.
Against impermanence I lock
My soul, confiding it to rock.
—Frances M. Frost (1905–1959), “Stoic,” Hemlock Wall, 1929