A Time To Talk

Coming upon Robert Frost’s inviting little poem “A Time to Talk” can be something of a pleasant surprise. Frost, like few other poets of the 20th century, has found a secure place in anthologies and syllabi. He is a known commodity: Frost’s iconic poems use the rural backdrop of his adopted New England home and, in his laconic pitch-perfect folksy voice, explore some of the darkest and most terrifying philosophical implications of his generation and its unsettling discovery of a vast and free-wheeling universe where God suddenly becomes completely irrelevant. Some of his best-known poems include “The Road Not Taken” (1916), “Fire and Ice” (1920), and “Nothing Gold Can Stay” (1923).

In contrast, “A Time to Talk” (1916) celebrates those little moments in a too busy day when friends stop and indulge in conversation. Without his signature irony, Frost elevates such stolen moments. Friends step entirely outside the furious busyness of their routine and, against their own better judgment, simply, happily chat. They indulge a “friendly visit” (Line 10) that in its very brevity and triviality offers deep and abiding consolation in a world that is otherwise full of motion without progress and purpose without meaning.