Frost's brilliance

This is only an excerpt, but it's my favorite part of Robert Frost's poem "Birches."

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
-- Robert Frost

I don't know if I have ever heard anything more beautifully written than those words. It is by far my most favorite poem. I'm not sure why it's in my head right now, but it very much is. And so I decided to do a podcast of me reading it. You don't get to see me, but for once you'll be hearing me. We'll see what you think of my fumbling.

Download: Birches [podcast, poem read by Christy Mannering]

Labels: Issue 1, Podcast, Robert Frost