Stopping by the Woods



Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Morning
Weldon Spring, Missouri



 

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

 by Robert Frost


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow...


Let me acknowledge here and now that I revere poets and poetry. 

My father used to read and recite poetry regularly to his six offspring, and his passion for it was obvious. It spilled from him like a fountain when he spoke, and it soaked into the pores of my soul.. He called poetry the "distillation of language into its purest form."  I love that definition.

I also love the fact that men and women through the ages, from Rumi to Dickenson to Ginsberg, have sought to distill language into its purest form. They continue today, those poets, trying and sometimes succeeding in distilling our thoughts, our dreams, our observations, and our love into its purest form. I am in awe of poets.

(I have a favortite poet in Blogland if you're interested. I know him only as Steven, and I know that he lives in Ontario, Canada. As many of the most esteemed poets have been, he seems an introspective person, a lover of nature, and a person with a keen sense of observation. He can see the significance in the most insignificant things. You can catch the refreshing rivulets of his poetry here; http://leakstev.blogspot.com/. But I digress...)

We are blessed with poets great and small from the Ancients to the Contemporaries if we have the ears to hear and eyes to read. And Robert Frost? Well, he's an icon of American poetry, isn't he? So who am I to judge? Well, no one. But I came away from my window this morning with the distinct impression that he had it wrong in his description of his ride through the woods on a snowy evening.

As I looked out my back window this snowy morning, I saw this deer. He's a fine young buck, a yearling, I suppose, and he was beautiful as he quietly but surely made his way through the drifts. He was in the company of a girlfriend, I think, who gingerly followed him into the woods. If you look closely at the photo, you can see the profile of her face behind the tree right next to her beau.

As I observed the pair, I had the feeling that I was intruding. They were at home here, meandering along the trees and underbrush, walking toward the pond downhill, much as I would meander into the kitchen to make the coffee early each morning.

I thought, too, as Frost expressed, that they would not see me here. I stood "to watch their woods fill up with snow..."

"Whose woods these are I think I know."

They are not ours.

Peace to you today.

In honor of the beautiful duo I spied upon this morning, I'm posting this from another incredibly beautiful duo. Here are two of the most eminent violinists in the world, Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman, playing George Frideric Handel's "Passacaglia". This duet is sometimes called "The Impossible Duet" because of its difficulty. Enjoy.