Remembering Frost at Kennedy’s Inauguration

Even the flags seemed frozen to their poles, and the men stamping their well-shod feet resembled an army of overcoats. But we were young and fueled by hope, our ardor burned away the cold. We were the president’s, and briefly the president would be ours. The old poet stumbled over his own indelible words, his breath a wreath around his face: a kind of prophecy.