Regarding the Robert Frost on My Window
I consider Robert Frost to be one of my favorite poets, but in reality I don't know his poetry well at all. I've read less than half of his poems, I'm sure, and the only one I know by memory is there because I was forced to memorize it in the 10th grade and am just pedant enough to have refused its release for these many years since.
But I do feel pretty certain Robert Frost once wrote, "Spring is the folly in me." That particular sentiment doesn't ring true in my life: Though spring is many things to me, I generally reserve the best of my folly for the summer. But I digress. My topic tonight is not spring, but winter--cold, bleak, but bracing. It's always in the winter that I feel my strongest desire to write. Snow, specifically, inspires the muse in me. Last year on a beautiful snow day when I was trapped at school with no students and nothing to do, I wrote a rather lengthy (and ponderous, I'm afraid) poem about the blankets of snow falling outside my window. Please don't laugh--it's rude. I know any of the fellow males with whom I graduated high school would gladly attempt to pulverize me for admitting so much, but sitting here in my frosted-over, cozy apartment in Japan, I feel relatively safe from all that. And perhaps that's part of the magic of winter too--the snug safeness one feels when it's terribly cold outside.
Whatever it is, winter always makes me want to be a writer--not just the little show-off that writes to you periodically on this blog, but a real, recognized, remunerated show-off like Robert Frost. But it's more than the prospect of good hours, good income, and a perpetual ego-stroke--I want to say something! Really. I want to make people laugh and cry and curse me and sing my praises--all from the snugness of my little apartment surrounded by frost.
Alas, therein lies the hitch to my little scheme: It's only good as long as the frost lasts. As soon as beautiful, nymph-like spring jumps onto the scene, I'm out my door and out of verse--the wonderland of winter is gone, and I'm a light-hearted fool once more. Perhaps spring is the folly in me, after all.
Even so, let it come! I'm ready!
But I do feel pretty certain Robert Frost once wrote, "Spring is the folly in me." That particular sentiment doesn't ring true in my life: Though spring is many things to me, I generally reserve the best of my folly for the summer. But I digress. My topic tonight is not spring, but winter--cold, bleak, but bracing. It's always in the winter that I feel my strongest desire to write. Snow, specifically, inspires the muse in me. Last year on a beautiful snow day when I was trapped at school with no students and nothing to do, I wrote a rather lengthy (and ponderous, I'm afraid) poem about the blankets of snow falling outside my window. Please don't laugh--it's rude. I know any of the fellow males with whom I graduated high school would gladly attempt to pulverize me for admitting so much, but sitting here in my frosted-over, cozy apartment in Japan, I feel relatively safe from all that. And perhaps that's part of the magic of winter too--the snug safeness one feels when it's terribly cold outside.
Whatever it is, winter always makes me want to be a writer--not just the little show-off that writes to you periodically on this blog, but a real, recognized, remunerated show-off like Robert Frost. But it's more than the prospect of good hours, good income, and a perpetual ego-stroke--I want to say something! Really. I want to make people laugh and cry and curse me and sing my praises--all from the snugness of my little apartment surrounded by frost.
Alas, therein lies the hitch to my little scheme: It's only good as long as the frost lasts. As soon as beautiful, nymph-like spring jumps onto the scene, I'm out my door and out of verse--the wonderland of winter is gone, and I'm a light-hearted fool once more. Perhaps spring is the folly in me, after all.
Even so, let it come! I'm ready!
posted by Peter Rice at 4:23 AM
1 Comments:
I don't know which Frost poem you memorized in high school, but for my new year's resolution last year I memorized the one that starts, "Some say the world will end in fire...".
Good to see you're still writing (artistically, I mean). I remember your work from some of the "Soundings" in college. Great stuff! I seem to remember a poem you wrote about an owl picture from y'all's apartment... am I mis-remembering that? Anyway, keep those creative juices flowing while it's still cold out. :)
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