| BIRCHES by Robert Frost
So was I once myself a swinger of birches; |
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| And so I dream of going back to be. |
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| It’s when I’m weary of considerations, |
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| And life is too much like a pathless wood |
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| Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs |
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| Broken across it, and one eye is weeping |
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| From a twig’s having lashed across it open. |
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| I’d like to get away from earth awhile |
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| And then come back to it and begin over. |
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| May no fate wilfully misunderstand me |
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| And half grant what I wish and snatch me away |
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| Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love: |
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| I don’t know where it’s likely to go better. |
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| I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree, |
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| And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk |
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| Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, |
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| But dipped its top and set me down again. |
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| That would be good both going and coming back. |
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| One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. |
jim espo's GRASSHOPPER PLANET 