Saturday, May 26, 2012

For Once, Then, Something : Poem In Your Post

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

                                           - Robert Frost

Every moment walking the earth today felt like that final sentence.  Perhaps not what Frost had in mind here, but every turn in the road called one to lose oneself to the other, to what's out there to be relished, however elusive or seemingly quotidian.

Many ways to celebrate this Memorial Day Weekend there may be, but perhaps we could spend a full hour or a full day appreciating the stunning abundance of life in this season.  Perhaps that would in some way honor the sacrifice of those who served to make our lives possible.  Perhaps that would take us out of ourselves and into the world and inspire us to serve as well, each in our own particular manner.

MFB,
L

1 comment:

As the Crowe Flies and Reads said...

I don't think I've ever run across this particular Frost poem. I wouldn't have recognized it as his style, not that I'm a Frost stylist expert or anything.

I love the line "Water came to rebuke the too clear water."

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