"Sex Without Love" Sharon Olds

I must say that I loved this poem, the contrast in the poem was phenomenal! I think that Brian Sutton took the words right out of my mouth by stating that this poem is "a contrast between emotional coldness and physical heat;" there is an aspect that is address which are morals conflicting with human sexuality which I feel Olds did amazingly in incorporating the imagery within this poem. The fact that Olds began this poem with a such a question: 
"How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love?"

As if she couldn't possibly fathom this possibility herself, you can tell from the way she describes the sexual act that she thinks of this to be a sacred thing between two people. The fact that she mentions God on several occasions also reflects her strong opinion on this matter. I feel like she is saying that if you love God how could you indulge in such a sacred act with someone who you don't love and she also mentions a counter aspect which I feel she made a good point and did an effortless job at it. In the very last lines of the poem was perfection as far as ending the poem:

"just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time."In the end if you don't have love then the sex is over and your left with just yourself, no love, no faith in God.

"Birches" Robert Frost

The poem "Birches" by Robert Frost is a poem of imagination, and escapism, earth and heaven, youth and age. The speaker in the poem seems to be in a nostalgic state of mind and having a conflict within himself. I feel as if the tree is representing his life as he has become weary through time like the tree "I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay" the boy he imagines would represent the youth that he craves again. The Earthly elements that had throughout time bent the tree over to me symbolizes life's trials, at some point the speaker has to accept life as it is, to come back to reality so to speak.  "But I was going to say when Truth broke in/With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm" her we see the element of Earth as he refers to mother nature. I feel this poem in many ways relates to "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop in a sense were it is human vs nature and the aging of nature. Nature doesn't understand time but through nature humans can establish some kind of empathy or gain insight to their own lives. The feel the speaker finds his sanity through imagination and death. "I'd like to get away from earth awhile/And then come back to it and begin over./May no fate willfully misunderstand me/And half grant what I wish and snatch me away/Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:" For he has grown old and weary like the tree through but choose to escape it by imagining the youthful will to live.