Poetry Monday in the Snow

Tags

adoptee, adoption, outdoors, Robert Frost, snowshoeing

Winter at Last! Here in the parched Southwest, we welcome any moisture that falls. After a dry January, Nature rewarded us with a snowstorm: two feet in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Last Saturday, three friends and I went snowshoeing in the Santa Fe National Forest. In puffy billows, fresh-fallen powder surrounded us. Tall pines, festooned in white, towered overhead. The morning sky was a deep, dazzling blue. The sun shone brilliantly, the light and shadows dappling the terrain. We made our way up and down hills from the Winsor to the Rio En Medio trails, talking intermittently but also listening to the silence. No one else around. Suddenly I remembered the following poem and recalled meeting the poet. I recited Robert Frost’ masterpiece from memory, inspiring others to quote from poems from their pasts. It was a magical morning.

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The Winsor Trail is one of the most popular in the Santa Fe area, but on this day we had it to ourselves!

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

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.

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Join Elaine for weekly blogs about the writing life, hiking and seeing the world through adoption-colored glasses. Her newest novel, The Hand of Ganesh, a tale of two women traveling through India, focuses on adoption and adventure. It will be available in March — through Amazon, Pocol Press or your local bookstore. Questions and comments welcome!

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How to Adopt Winter

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Hiking, national adoption month, outdoors, Robert Frost, Snow, Solitude, trails, Winter

NOTE FROM ELAINE: I’m preparing for a book promotion tour, leaving for Amelia Island and a debut for SANTA FE ON FOOT. So, dear readers, this is a replay for a post I published originally two years ago. Enjoy!

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Today we awakened to fresh snow. It continued, for hours, snowing off and on. In the high mountain country of the Southwest, snowfall brings a welcome transformation. Instead of autumnal brown, sere, scruffy terrain of the recent months, we now view snow-covered pinons, the nearby Rocky Mountain foothills hooded in white, everything fresh and pristine.  I am drawn to Robert Frost’s musing on the silence of the woods, the solitude of his horse-drawn sleigh journey, the temptation to linger in the stillness contrasted with the needs of the day. So here on this snowbound day, I offer you, dear readers, one of my favorite poems…
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Path to Raven’s Ridge, Santa Fe, NM

By Robert Frost
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.

Winter often arrives early here in Santa Fe. This Autumn, it came just in time for “Take a Hike” Day, officially November 17th. Whatever your favorite seasonal way to be outdoors, put on your skis, snowshoes, or your best hiking boots, and tromp away those Monday Blues.

Follow Elaine’s Monday musings on adoption and life.

Poetry Monday

Tags

adoptee, adoption, Adoption Blues, Invisible wounds, memories, Poetry, recovery, Robert Frost

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

It seems that no matter how far I’ve come, the ghosts of my “adoption past,” unbidden, come back to haunt me. What to do about the attack? I realized that it might be a good idea to do some re-naming. Instead of “Blue Monday,” I’m choosing to call today “Poetry Monday.” The choice of whether or not to go with the painful memories or to push through them and then move on is always available. Pushing, shoving, dislodging, climbing up out of the depths. Along those lines, I offer you a poem that has provided me with great solace throughout the years…
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Do you recall roads not taken in your life? What choices and twists of fate have shaped your destiny?