tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post5710803512330545591..comments2023-10-22T06:57:24.408-07:00Comments on The Book of Common Moments: O the Poetry of LongingFrankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12003630085060454956noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-47922027191603589272016-12-21T03:47:35.581-08:002016-12-21T03:47:35.581-08:00O Oriens
Another Frost poem, this time on the nig...O Oriens<br /><br />Another Frost poem, this time on the night of the winter solstice, and more.<br /><br />Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening<br /><br />Whose woods these are I think I know. <br />His house is in the village though; <br />He will not see me stopping here <br />To watch his woods fill up with snow. <br /><br />My little horse must think it queer <br />To stop without a farmhouse near <br />Between the woods and frozen lake <br />The darkest evening of the year. <br /><br />He gives his harness bells a shake <br />To ask if there is some mistake. <br />The only other sound’s the sweep <br />Of easy wind and downy flake. <br /><br />The woods are lovely, dark and deep, <br />But I have promises to keep, <br />And miles to go before I sleep, <br />And miles to go before I sleep.<br /><br />It is the darkest evening of the year, obviously the solstice, when darkness lasts longest, unless you read another kind of darkness, the kind that can occur on any evening, into the poem. And what is missing this darkest evening but the owner of the woods. The absent father, the absent owner, recurs in Frost's poetry, and it is not hard to read this absent being as God, especially not when the reader is given other hints, such as, "his house is in the village though." The poet's choice is to enter the deep and dark woods (where day will be long in coming) or not to do so and to proceed with life's obligations and its different journey. To enter the woods is precisely to engage upon a particular spiritual quest, which, as always, must begin with descent to death and hell. "Between the woods and frozen lake" is precisely the location of Dante's Inferno. But that journey took place at the vernal equinox. Far more dangerous to take it at the solstice - to enter the darkness when darkness is deepest.JChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07319299863476508773noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-4046637050288018052016-12-20T08:54:09.021-08:002016-12-20T08:54:09.021-08:00Well, sorry for the errors. Spellcheck was not my ...Well, sorry for the errors. Spellcheck was not my friend. " Frost's wood will not sprout again, nor is the pile's creator likely to remember it." But error gives me opportunity for expansion.<br /><br />There is another way to read Frost's poem. Consider the bird. "One flight out sideways would have undeceived him." Undeceived him that he was pursued, that everything is "personal to himself." And so we too might need to fly out sideways to see beyond the dark despair of personal abandonment, "the slow smokeless burning" of our decay. The wood pile is propped on one side by a tree, "still growing", and living clematis clearly keeps the bundle together year after year, though stake and prop are about to fall. How much comfort a reader might take in that is no doubt dependent upon whether the reader believes the pile's creator in the end "could so forget his handiwork on which he spent himself" that the pile will finally sink into decay. "Come and deliver us, and tarry not" indeed.JChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07319299863476508773noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22230483.post-73673922561027193892016-12-19T05:38:57.416-08:002016-12-19T05:38:57.416-08:00O Radix Jesse
I imagine the same conceit invests ...O Radix Jesse<br /><br />I imagine the same conceit invests Frost's darker poem, with the wood nearly an allegory for human beings. Frosts wood will not sprout again, not is the pile's creator likely to remember it.<br /><br />The Wood-Pile<br /><br />Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day, <br />I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here. <br />No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.' <br />The hard snow held me, save where now and then <br />One foot went through. The view was all in lines <br />Straight up and down of tall slim trees <br />Too much alike to mark or name a place by <br />So as to say for certain I was here <br />Or somewhere else: I was just far from home. <br />A small bird flew before me. He was careful <br />To put a tree between us when he lighted, <br />And say no word to tell me who he was <br />Who was so foolish as to think what he thought. <br />He thought that I was after him for a feather— <br />The white one in his tail; like one who takes <br />Everything said as personal to himself. <br />One flight out sideways would have undeceived him. <br />And then there was a pile of wood for which <br />I forgot him and let his little fear <br />Carry him off the way I might have gone, <br />Without so much as wishing him good-night. <br />He went behind it to make his last stand. <br />It was a cord of maple, cut and split <br />And piled—and measured, four by four by eight. <br />And not another like it could I see. <br />No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it. <br />And it was older sure than this year's cutting, <br />Or even last year's or the year's before. <br />The wood was gray and the bark warping off it <br />And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis <br />Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle. <br />What held it though on one side was a tree <br />Still growing, and on one a stake and prop, <br />These latter about to fall. I thought that only <br />Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks <br />Could so forget his handiwork on which <br />He spent himself, the labor of his ax, <br />And leave it there far from a useful fireplace <br />To warm the frozen swamp as best it could <br />With the slow smokeless burning of decay. JChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07319299863476508773noreply@blogger.com