Poetry
is the written expression of our existence whether it be purely visual or sung to the rhythm of an instrument. It
records the very fiber of our being with all the rhythm of the heart and every
sense of our existence. Certain poets
have a way of speaking to me in particular and I find the poetry of Robert
Frost to be especially communicative to me.
He took the ordinary things from his New England existence and put them
on paper in such a beautiful display of vibrancy and reality for me that I feel
comfort when I read his poems. “When I
see birches… I like to think some boy’s been…” “Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood…” “Nothing gold can stay…” When I read his poetry I know that this man was
not only in touch with his surroundings, he also was in touch with his fellow
man.
I
don’t ever remember not liking his poetry, so it’s no surprise that when I went
to Ripton, Vermont to his farm there adjacent to the Bread Loaf Campus of
Middlebury College I felt completely at ease with the surroundings. The Green Mountains have the same sense of
comfort that the mountains of North Idaho have.
While they are less rugged than many of the mountains I have encountered
here and their elevation can seem comically low to one from the west, they
still have a rugged beauty that pulls in a westerner such as me or Robert
Frost. Frost brought that sense of
beauty and pain that comes with mountain living right into every word he seemed
to commit to paper. I am constantly
drawn to the ideas of being in the woods and perusing the changing leaves, the
choices made in life compared to the choices of walking down a wooded path in
autumn or the splendor of a snowfall in the evening. These things are written along with the poems
of marital difficulties, getting along with neighbors and typical life
struggles. His poetry conveys both the difficulty and beauty of life in such a
way that I feel connected to him as an old friend who has good advice for
me. I am very thankful for the poetry of
Robert Frost.
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