While we slept last night, the snow drew its white blanket over our neighborhood. Very early this morning, I awoke to a brightness glowing through the blinds at an odd hour. I peeked out to look upon a winter wonderland! Absolute still, grand beauty. The soft wet snow rested upon branches like jewels and embellished the ground like a carpet of diamonds. Where the light came from, I do not know. It wasn't dawn yet, and still the sky was cloudy white, a bowl turned over. The snow flakes were picking up light from miles away and bouncing them off one another, like miniature disco balls in a soundless celebration. I went back to my soft, warm bed filled with visions of this beauty.
This morning, while my First Mate was clearing the driveway, the children and I spotted 3 deer watching him.
It seemed the right time to read Frost's 'Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening':
When I was a child - like all school children in India - the last paragraph of this poem was dinned into my head..."...And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep". We had to recite these as a class, repeatedly. Often, this poem was a hot favorite for Recitation contests, closely followed by the next all-time favorite - Wordsworth's 'Daffodils'. India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is said to have written down the last paragraph of this poem on a slip of paper, found by his bedside upon his passing in 1964. Nehru is also said to have quoted these lines when speaking of an independent India. India has truly travelled miles from that dawn of independence on August 15 1947.
Osho, the Indian spiritual teacher, interprets the lines thus: "The woods are lovely...' Everybody has to go alone; you cannot keep company. Because you have to go inwards you can only go alone. ‘The woods are lovely...' because the woods are of your inner being. If you go for an outer pilgrimage, you can have company; somebody can be with you: a beloved, a friend, a relative, a fellow traveler. But the woods are lovely because the woods are of your inner being – you have to go alone..."
This morning, while my First Mate was clearing the driveway, the children and I spotted 3 deer watching him.
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.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
My son and I have been reading about the American Presidents this week, and he was thrilled to know that Frost was called the President's Poet, for having read a poem during the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. I love Frost for his simple and effective language, and the matter-of-fact manner in which he depicts rural American life. The 4 time Pulitzer Prize winner's epitaph reads "I had a lover's quarrel with the world"...
My son and I have been reading about the American Presidents this week, and he was thrilled to know that Frost was called the President's Poet, for having read a poem during the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. I love Frost for his simple and effective language, and the matter-of-fact manner in which he depicts rural American life. The 4 time Pulitzer Prize winner's epitaph reads "I had a lover's quarrel with the world"...
When I was a child - like all school children in India - the last paragraph of this poem was dinned into my head..."...And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep". We had to recite these as a class, repeatedly. Often, this poem was a hot favorite for Recitation contests, closely followed by the next all-time favorite - Wordsworth's 'Daffodils'. India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is said to have written down the last paragraph of this poem on a slip of paper, found by his bedside upon his passing in 1964. Nehru is also said to have quoted these lines when speaking of an independent India. India has truly travelled miles from that dawn of independence on August 15 1947.
Osho, the Indian spiritual teacher, interprets the lines thus: "The woods are lovely...' Everybody has to go alone; you cannot keep company. Because you have to go inwards you can only go alone. ‘The woods are lovely...' because the woods are of your inner being. If you go for an outer pilgrimage, you can have company; somebody can be with you: a beloved, a friend, a relative, a fellow traveler. But the woods are lovely because the woods are of your inner being – you have to go alone..."
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