The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky . . . "
~ W. B. Yeats ~ "The Wild Swans at Coole" ~
Many thanks to Barbara McFadden for reminding me
-- see "October Light, October Heavy" ~ 2017 --
to re - read Frost's reflective poem,
in conjunction with Thomson's painting:
Birches
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
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:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.[emphasis added]
by Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963
Four-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Well - loved American poet
**************************
And for a bit of fun, amusing wordplay, and sly truth,
starting with Robert Frost's conclusion and finishing
with a timely political nod in the "right" direction:
Worse
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches
For example, one could be a slinger of burgers at McDonald's.
Or one could be a bringer of frivolous lawsuits.
Or one could be a flinger of gossipy dirt
for The New York Post.
Or one could be a singer of inane songs on MTV for pre - teens.
Or one could be a clinger of apron strings.
Or one could be a dead-ringer for one
of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted.
Or one could be a hunch-backed ringer of French church bell.
Or one could be a second-stringer on a last place minor league baseball team.
Or one could be a stringer for a newspaper in the sticks.
Or one could be a finger man for the mafia.
Or one could be a dinger of car fenders on the parking lot of Walmart.
Or one could be a left-winger for a last place minor league hockey team.
Or one could be a right-winger of any country's politics.
Or one could be a jingler of idiotic jingles on the radio for
pre - teens.
Or one could be a malingerer.
J. R. Solonche, Contemporary American
in Invisible
Golden Autumn, 1895 ~ by Isaac Levitan, 1860 1900
No comments:
Post a Comment