Today I discovered a renewed interest in poems. This "enlightenment" came while painting at the Boys and Girls Club with some friends, where there were so many smells and sights that reminded me of my own time at elementary school. The cozy smell of burning lint on the radiator, with its accompanying warm, sedative heat. Stepping outside and seeing the weeds that have seeds that look like tiny green pumpkins that we used to eat at recess; peering into a closet full of dodgeballs.
Somehow these nostalgic thoughts prompted me to ask my friends, in a Robin Williams-type way, if anyone knew any poetry to recite. This is perhaps the first time in my life I have done this. We each mustered up a poem or two. One of my friends recited "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I had always enjoyed the ending of this poem: "But I have promises to Keep/And miles to go before I sleep." Hearing the whole poem was a treat.
I took a few minutes to memorize this poem when I got home. It's was a pleasant surprise to find out how fast it's possible to memorize poems. I knocked this baby off (helped by it's unique rhyme scheme) in under 30 minutes (try it--I bet you can, too!). And now I have deliberate, thoughtful prose I can mull over in idle moments.
So here is the poem:
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.
