Acceptance

by Robert Lee Frost — a poem card from Justes Mots

A meditation on acceptance in the face of life's inevitable changes, using sunset and the approach of night as metaphors for mortality. Frost observes how nature accepts the coming darkness without protest, with one bird whispering 'Safe!' before surrendering to the night. The poem counsels letting go of the need to see into the future and accepting what will be.

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,…

Themes: sympathy · grief · reflection