[2020-10-25] Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Though I felt about the same physically today as yesterday, I had less mental energy. I find that happens after I've been sick for a few days. It's as though I get tired of feeling off. But I know that this feeling won't last and that I'll bounce back in a day or two.
For today's weekly Zoom call with my mom, sister and niece, we discussed a poem—Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening":
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.
It was fun to listen to what each of us took from the poem. I shared that when I was working as an Assistant Deputy Minister, I would often find myself with many hours of work to complete before I could go to bed, and the last two lines of this poem would come to mind: "And miles to go before I sleep."
My favourite interpretation of the poem was one my daughter gave yesterday: "It's about presence," she said. And that made so much sense to me. "The woods are lovely, dark and deep," says Frost, as he stops to take it in, and the only sound is "easy wind and downy flake." Even his little horse finds it odd that they would stop "without a farmhouse near" and "gives his harness bells a shake | To ask if there is some mistake." Frost's pause in the woods strikes me as being about taking a moment to see the beauty in life even if that moment is short-lived. There is much to be said for that perspective even if we, like Frost, have promises to keep and miles to go before we sleep.
