Employee of the Month

Birches by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Every now and then I return to this poem.  It does something to me emotionally that I can quite describe.  I like to hang out in this poem when I am experiencing prolonged moments of melancholy.  It brings up a lot of feeling of nostalgia for me which can be dangerous at times.  I continue to be surprised by how few people are aware of this poem.  I am also quite sure that the few people who read my Tumblr page are already aware of it, but I still felt the need to post it today.  So, if you already knew about the poem, I hope you enjoyed rereading it.  If it is new to you, I hope you enjoyed a new discovery.

Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.

survival

molls:

When you’ve been this girl:

And you’ve already met these girls:

AND you’ve survived?

You get to spend the rest of your life knowing that deep down, you are actually THIS WOMAN:

Source: molls

New Name

I need to come up with a new name for my Tumblr page.  I went with “Employee of the Month” originally because it was an ironic title.  Jess (I still don’t know how to tag you in my posts) turned me on to it while we were working at a job we both hated.  At the time, it was a way to get me through the work day.

I love my new job though and therefore the ironic title no longer applies.  Now I just seem like a huge fan of the triumphant trifecta that is Dane Cook, Dax Shepard and Jessica Simpson.

So, if any of my vast followers - yes, all three of you - have any suggestions, I am open to them.  Also, I should probably start posting here more; so if there is anything you have been wishing that I would pontificate upon, you should let me know.

One more thing…

There is probably a way to make it so that when I say “littlejess” it highlights her name a la Twitter or Facebook.  I do not know how to do that though.  Normally I would text her from my office to her office to ask her how to do that since she is my Tumblr guru.  However, we no longer have offices.  Therefore, for now, her name shall go unhighlighted on my page.  Such a shame…