Friday, March 25, 2011

It seems only prudent today, given the extensive use of my blog, to explain the title. You see, in case you haven't noticed, I love literature. A lot. I have some favorite pieces, like any lit lover. Among them is the poem "Birches" by Robert Frost. Everybody has heard of Frost-- two roads diverged in a yellow wood-- you know. But not enough people have heard of birches.
Allow me now, to share this poem with you. It's a bit long, so I will put the last part, which is my favorite.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
It's when I'm weary fo 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 for a while
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and wisk 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 both going and coming back.
One could do worse than to be a swinger of birches.

Lovely.

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