The Saw

A major character in the poem is the saw—no, not the one from Saw V. Frost doesn't exactly give the saw agency, but it does appear as more of a character than you might think. You could read the saw as simply an extension of the boy's personality, or you could also read the saw as an independent character. The poem is designed to make us think about what role the saw plays in all of this, and to use imagery that makes it seem more active than passive. After all, are tools passive things or active actors? It's a question that that poem seems to be grappling with.

• Lines 1-2: The imagery here is sensory and productive. We hear the noises the saw makes, and see the things it produces (dust and sticks). Notice how Frost uses the word "make" to refer to dust, and "drop" to refer to the actual production of fire-logs—it's as though he's implying that the saw's production is simply to convert dust to dust. One could even argue that the poem is about inverted production, about humans slaving away at their own destruction with machines that simply hasten dust's return to dust. 
• Line 8: The saw either "runs light" or has to "bear a load." These are active, industrious images that alert us to the use-value of the saw.
• Line 15: Here's where things get interesting. The saw "leaps" at the word "Supper" "as if to prove saws know what supper meant." It's almost as though the saw is attempting to break out of its machine shell to take on a human characteristic of awareness; as an extension of the boy, it takes on the boy's personality. 
• Line 18: The imagery here attempts to understand the active and passive role that each actor played in the collision. "Neither refused the meeting" seems to be both.