Nothing Gold Can Stay

The title of this poem really caught my eye; it made me think of the cliché "all good things must come to an end." This poem is talking about nature and how fast the beauty of springtime comes and goes.
The first line in this poem "Nature's first green is gold," is talking about how the first leaves on the trees are a yellowish green color, almost golden.
The second line "Her hardest hue to hold," means the beautiful young yellow leaves don't stay young for very long, and soon they become the darker green color. I thought about it as meaning to people that you're only young once.
The third line: "Her early leaf's a flower," is referring to the idea of the budding of plants, which are often flowers.
The fourth line, "But only so an hour," talks about how fast a flower can wilt. The budding, blossoming and then wilting of a flower can occur in a matter of days, depending on the flower. Metaphorically, I think the poem is referring to how life happens quickly, and if you're too busy to stop and enjoy the ride, you'll miss all the beauty it has to offer.
The fifth line "Then leaf subsides to leaf," talks about how "special" the flower is once it's gone. When it's no longer in bloom, it doesn't matter, the gold has faded away.
The next couple of lines give examples about how "nothing gold can stay." The sixth line, "So Eden sank to grief," has a biblical reference. The Garden of Eden was so beautiful and lovely until Eve ate the apple. The next line "So dawn goes down to day," talks about how beautiful the colors of the sunrise are, purples, oranges, pinks, and yellows, but once the sun has risen, it's just another day. There is nothing so special in an ordinary day.
The poem then ends with the title: "Nothing gold can stay." It solidifies the idea that Frost is trying to convey: that all good things come to an end.
I really liked the poem, but I wish the "moral" wasn't so widely accepted. We can make "gold" stay it just takes that much more effort.

This Is Just To Say

I decided to read this poem because the title reminded me of the song "Say What You Need to Say" by John Mayer which I really like.
Because I was in the mood of the John Mayer song before starting this poem, I was surprised by the mischievousness of the poem.
Reading the poem a second time, I wondered if the plums stood for something, if the poem had a deep philosophical meaning behind it.
The plums, even though they are only mentioned once, are the central topic of this poem. The speaker was hungry and ate some delicious, sweet and cold plums but now the person who was saving them no longer gets to enjoy one of the plums he was saving. How sad..
The short, choppy lines, (I googled and found out when an author interrupts a thought with a line break its called an enjambment. Authors do this to show the importance of the ideas trying to be shared.) show how bad the speaker feels. He feels guilty for eating all the plums, and is possibly at a loss for words in how to apologize.
The lack of punctuation show that the speaker was in a hurry. Maybe he didn't have enough time to make himself breakfast and so he grabbed the plums because they were quick and easy.

Sindhi Woman

This poem caught my attention by the title. I've always been interested in other cultures and a Sindhi Woman seemed to be the epitome of just that.
As I started reading the poem I thought it was really beautiful. In the first stanza, Jon Stallworthy was talking about the woman, graceful as can be, someone people should look up to. I envisioned the woman in my head reading the poem. She was head strong, tall, confident, hard working, tenacious, caring; the list goes on. The thought of her being in poverty didn't even cross my mind until the second stanza when garbage and excrement were mentioned.
I thought Stallworthy's ability to take something most people would automatically pity right away and turn her into an icon, a treasure, a jewel was remarkable. Even after he shared how she lived in poverty, I still admired her, I almost wanted to be her.
In the poem, Stallworthy uses the excrement, stones, and glass to refer to the difficulty of the woman's life. But the woman still stands tall, carrying the traditions and expectations and ancestry with her. And she continues to do this without complaints; just grace and beauty.
I really liked the meaning of this poem, and the way Stallworthy changed the view of a Sindhi Woman, if even just for a moment.