birches

recently, while digging around in my attic, i found a copy of the norton anthology of literature, which i used in a college english class almost 21 years ago. upon re-reading some of the poetry pieces, i discovered "birches" by robert frost. i have fallen in love with it...particularly these last lines:

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 willfully 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.

i've never climbed a birch tree, but as a child, i often climbed the apple tree in my grandmother's back yard. life was uncomplicated then. and pure. and joyous. oh, to be in that tree again, surrounded by simplicity and love.

when i'm weary of considerations and life is too much like a pathless wood, i'd like to get away from earth awhile, and then come back to it and begin over...