"Fire and Ice" deals with a question that it is on the tip of everyone's tongue right now. How are human beings going to destroy the planet? Will it be in a blaze of suffocating heat or "fire," as in global warming? Or will it be in blast of "ice," like a nuclear winter or the exhaustion of the earth's molten core? Clearly, this poem has "disaster movie" written all over it. Who says poetry can't be timely?

Except that Frost's poem is not about natural disasters. Or, not entirely. "Fire" and "ice" are symbols of two different sides of the human animal: the passionate and the rational. Our "passions" define our animal nature, and our reason makes us humans. We all know how ferocious a wild, untamed beast can be. But the poem argues that the human mind and intelligence is an equally dangerous weapon, one with the power to turn the earth – or at least the parts inhabited by humans – into a cold and uninhabitable wasteland.

This poem is a textbook example of extended symbolism, and "hot" and "cold" are symbols that we use every day. Frost's use of symbols is no different from someone who has just suffered some cruel trick or manipulation and says, "That's cold, man. That's ice cold."