Let me start by being honest. I'm moved by a sense of beauty at the compilation of sound and meter and the way the words feel on my tongue when I read them out loud. But, when it comes to deciphering them, I'm lost. Robert Frosts sets the lines in a steady rhythm and language that seems simple, but I know it has more meaning than I can perceive. I'll do my best.

I'll settle into poem that stood out with clear political connotations and references that were unsettling to me. The Gift Outright begins with phrases that caused me to cringe. This piece was recited by Frost at John F. Kennedy's 1961 inauguration. "The land was ours before we were the land's. Before we were her people... she was ours.." I couldn't help but relate these statements to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And, I wonder if Frost wrote from a literal view. Where did he really stand?

Does our Manifest Destiny hold the same fervor that the Jewish and Muslim people's beliefs would that justify obtaining at all costs God's will? Is every people willing to kill for their promised land? I see the parallels in all cultures and it's frightening.

My husband and I were able to travel to Jordan in November for two weeks, and hosted a Jordanian administrator in our home for an additional two weeks. We spent time in a Palestinian refuge school in Amman. These children have no country. They call them selves Palestinians, but there is no Palestine. Jordan will house, but not accept them as their own. They have every faith that they will again return to their homeland. Israel doesn't exist to a Muslim; Palestine doesn't exist to an Israeli Jew. My perception is that these feuding groups are not always as different from Americans as we would believe or the media would portray. There is pride in every culture.

The words possessing, unpossessed, and possessed were skillfully used in the next phrases. Basically, we can look at the early Americans as a people who became possessed with possession of land. It was never enough. They wanted "sea to shining sea." Maybe this piece is a recognition of faults or is he serious?

I'd go to the phrases that refer to the "weakness of withholding of ourselves" and relate it to allowing ourselves to be possessed and lose ourselves in that. Does the cause somehow override humanity?

I'm troubled by the final phrases. I read into them the suggestion that whites deeded a gift of land to the Indians, as if it was a great gesture. Also, is he suggesting that The Indian culture was "still unstoried, artless, and unenhanced?" I have to say that this week I have more questions after compiling my blog than I had when I began. What was the true message and motive of the author?