Welcome back to a Poem For Your Thoughts, where we talk about all things poetry. Last week we discussed the beautiful writings of Oscar Wilde, a poet you might have been familiar with. I encourage you to continue posting comments on each weekly edition of this column and you just might end up in next week’s article! Each edition will include two poems, the first being a featured piece written by a famous poet that will be analyzed and interpreted according to my point of view. Of course, everyone’s interpretation is different and valid, and the comment section will be open for any further discussion. The second piece is written by yours truly and will be open to complete interpretation and analysis. Go forth, enjoy, and as you read, remember: “It is not what you look at that matters, it is what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau

Poem One: Birches by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice storms do. Often you must have seen them 5
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells 10
Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed 15
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 20
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter of fact about the ice storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, 25
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them, 30
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise 35
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. 40
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 45
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 not fate willfully misunderstand me 50
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 55
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.

Thoughts: Frost is certainly the perfect foil to the first poem we discussed on this column, Walt Whitman. He is a stickler for form and structure, while Whitman’s style is very flowing and rule-breaking. In this particular poem, the speaker is reminiscent of his childhood and how he used to play on the birch trees. Although he knows he is much older now, he still wishes he could be snatched away into the fantasy of “climbing a birch tree” even if he is 55. It is a reflection of a simpler time, and even though Frost’s speaker knows the branches are bent and swaying due to the snow and the wind, he imagines it is caused by boys such as his own youthful self, being adventurous and climbing to greater heights in the trees. A beautiful, sentimental poem.

Poem Two: Birch Trees by D.C.

Saddened is the man, who loses his love,

His soul, no longer flies like a graceful dove.

Woe is he, for he was deceived,

She just was not what he believed.

He walks past her in the hall,

But does not wish to see her at all.

Heartbroken, melancholy, filled with dismay,

There simply is no greater price to pay.

Days, weeks, and months go by,

The man still can’t look her in the eye.

He sees her and quickly flees the scene,

Slipping past the feelings he is caught in between.

As he walks home, he realizes that these birch trees know,

Losing love is like spring rain changing to winter snow.

Birch trees and the boy are one in the same,

When they have broken hearts, there is just one to blame.

But birch trees always wait until spring returns,

For that love in their hearts still strongly burns.

But for the young man, he is given no such slack,

For his love is simply never coming back.

-D.C.

What did you think of the Frost poem? Does my poem speak to you in any way that is different from that of Frost’s? Please let me know in the comment section below and you might be in next week’s issue!