Have you ever read any Robert Frost?
He’s a poet; died 1963.
He was a country man.
Loved nature and trees.
And respected the power of death and darkness.
He knew fear and isolation.
And he also knew that those were seasons.
The winter cannot keep the spring from coming.
But all seasons eventually find a place in the life of nature and the life of man.
He wrote a poem called “Good-By and Keep Cold.”
Here’s a line,
“How often you’ve had to be told,
Keep cold, young orchard. Good-by and keep cold.
Dread fifty above more than fifty below.”
What does he mean here?
In the beginning of the poem he describes how there are many things that can hurt a young orchard (rabbits, dear, the sun), but he is not afraid of the cold.
The bark is not thick enough to protect it from the sun (or against “being” as he calls it). The orchard needs time to develop in the dark and the cold.
The direct and constant rays of the Sun would kill a young orchard.
The orchard actually needs the darkness and cold to mature.
It is important for its development.
It doesn’t last forever, but the season was not all evil.
But when you’re cold, you only want to be warm.
And these lines of Frost will be forgotten.
You only want to be warm.
But when you have time, look back.
And perhaps you might more grateful for the cold than you though you could be.
Tom+