In my search for inspiration for the holiday season, I returned to Robert Frost. Here’s a poem called "The Armful."
For every parcel I stoop down to seize
I lose some other off my arms and knees,
And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns-
Extremes too hard to comprehend at once,
Yet nothing I could care to leave behind.
With all I have to hold with, hand and mind
And heart, if need be, I will do my best
To keep their building balanced at my breast.
I crouch down to prevent them as they fall,
Then sit down in the middle of them all.
I had to drop the armful in the road
And try to stack them in a better load.
Is he talking about the material things we acquire and have to carry home, or the thoughts and obligations we carry in our arms? Hard to tell with Frost because he is deep under the surface. Maybe it’s presents that are in his arms, too many to hold.
I discovered that Frost is helpful for those who struggle with tighter budgets and alternatives to gift giving. This poem is called, "Nothing Gold Can stay."
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then, leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day,
Nothing gold can stay.
Frost who lived in Vermont for some time, knows how to turn to nature for metaphor. We are familiar with "Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood," with it’s famous last line: "I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." In leafing through his collected poems I found a short poem which is also set in the woods. It lifted my spirits, and perhaps it will lift yours too. Listen to the poem "Dust of Snow."
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a Day I had rued.
Happy holidays, peace, and good will on earth to all of you.
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"The Armful" "Nothing Gold Can Stay," and "Dust of Snow" are from THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Read by arrangement with Henry Holt and Company, Publishers.