afieldnotebook

Directive

Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
The road there, if you’ll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry—
Great monolithic knees the former town
Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.
And there’s a story in a book about it:
Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels
The ledges show lines ruled southeast-northwest,
The chisel work of an enormous Glacier
That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.
You must not mind a certain coolness from him
Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain.
Nor need you mind the serial ordeal
Of being watched from forty cellar holes
As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.
As for the woods’ excitement over you
That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,
Charge that to upstart inexperience.
Where were they all not twenty years ago?
They think too much of having shaded out
A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.
Make yourself up a cheering song of how
Someone’s road home from work this once was,
Who may be just ahead of you on foot
Or creaking with a buggy load of grain.
The height of the adventure is the height
Of country where two village cultures faded
Into each other. Both of them are lost.
And if you’re lost enough to find yourself
By now, pull in your ladder road behind you
And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
Then make yourself at home. The only field
Now left’s no bigger than a harness gall.
First there’s the children’s house of make-believe,
Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,
The playthings in the playhouse of the children.
Weep for what little things could make them glad.
Then for the house that is no more a house,
But only a belilaced cellar hole,
Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.
This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.
Your destination and your destiny’s
A brook that was the water of the house,
Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,
Too lofty and original to rage.
(We know the valley streams that when aroused
Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.)
I have kept hidden in the instep arch
Of an old cedar at the waterside
A broken drinking goblet like the Grail
Under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it,
So can’t get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn’t.
(I stole the goblet from the children’s playhouse.)
Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

-Robert Frost
The first three lines of this poem was my senior quote for my high school yearbook, mostly because in the last minute I decided against the first six lines of the first poem in this post and happened to have those lines from "Directive" committed to memory. Plus, the lines and the reference fit within the yearbook's limit (for whatever reason, the yearbook staff choose not to include the reference, and I'm still a little annoyed with them for that). The quote didn't make much sense then, but it makes more sense now--the yearbook itself brings us back out of all this now to much for us, back to a time made simple by the loss, of detail, burned, dissolved, or broken off. Why else would we have it? But don't just read the first few lines--my disappointment that the reference was left out of my senior quote derived from the fact that I think the whole poem is worthwhile, so dive in.

So this is the third Robert Frost poem to be featured in Wednesday poem day. He's got everyone else beat (Wendell Berry is in second place, with two), demonstrating what an effective job the New Hampshire public school system did of convincing me that Robert Frost is some sort of poetical genius. And I was only in their care for six years--I imagine this blog would be entirely Robert Frost poems if I had stayed any longer.