Tue 15 Mar 2011
Stepping on Nature
Posted by Bob under Nature, Rants
[2] Comments
Recently I stepped on a metal rake I had stupidly left lying pointing up on the ground, and the laws of physics produced an egg-sized protrusion on my forehead, which thankfully went down with icing and is only barely noticeable now. Our friend Phil Welker (a former English teacher) then sent me the following Robert Frost poem, made doubly meaningful by the fact that my family spent many summers in Ripton, Vermont, only a short distance down the road from Homer Noble Farm, Frost’s summer residence.
The Objection to Being Stepped Upon
At the end of the row
I stepped upon the toe
Of an unemployed hoe.
It rose in offense
And struck me a blow
In the seat of my sense.
It wasn’t to blame
But I called it a name.
And I must say it dealt
Me a blow that I felt
Like Malice prepense.
You may call me a fool,
But was there a rule
The weapon should be
Turned into a tool?
And what do we see?
The first tool I stepped
Turned into a weapon.
Given the tragic and scary news coming out of Japan these days, I can’t help wondering about a similar irony and possible lesson.
It swung up and you hit like in Loony Toons? I didn’t know that happened in real life. (Or that Frost wrote about it)
It really does happen! It’s not hard to test out, but I don’t really recommend it.
Frost wrote about all sorts of things connected with nature and farming, but I only recently learned that he was a chicken farmer for part of his life and even wrote regularly for two poultry magazines! See the interesting post at the blog, Garden Rant, at http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2011/03/robert-frost-poultryman.html