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<\/a>In an endless quest to simplify blogging while staying true to the mission of this space\u2014to proclaim the joy of being Catholic\u2014here\u2019s a new weekly feature: poems, not necessarily Catholic, that have inspired us in our spiritual journey. Father Giussani, founder of Communion and Liberation, was a great one for seeing the Mystery in artistic creation. So call this column a tribute to his insight.\n<\/a>
\nWe\u2019re moving into \u201cmud time\u201d here in New England, and I can\u2019t think of a better first selection than Robert Frost\u2019s great poem about a man splitting wood during the spring thaw. A poet could work a whole lifetime and not write a better final stanza.\u00a0\n
What\u2019s Catholic about this poem? It combines physicality with spirituality. This is life\u2014the raw effort of wielding the ax while one\u2019s heart reaches for Heaven\u2014\u201cvocation\u201d in harmony with \u201cavocation.\u201d It\u2019s the same dynamic found in Frost\u2019s other beautiful up-high\/down-low poem, \u201cBirches.\u201d Which I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll get to one of these Wednesdays.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
One good thing about \u201cTwo Tramps\u201d and most of Frost\u2014I don\u2019t feel like an idiot reading it but not understanding it. The meaning and beauty are all right there, in the daily specifics of New England life.<\/p>\n
TWO TRAMPS IN MUD TIME
\nOut of the mud two strangers came
\nAnd caught me splitting wood in the yard,
\nAnd one of them put me off my aim
\nBy hailing cheerily \u201cHit them hard!\u201d
\nI knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
\nAnd let the other go on a way.
\nI knew pretty well what he had in mind:
\nHe wanted to take my job for pay.<\/p>\n
Good blocks of oak it was I split,
\nAs large around as the chopping block;
\nAnd every piece I squarely hit
\nFell splinterless as a cloven rock.
\nThe blows that a life of self-control
\nSpares to strike for the common good,
\nThat day, giving a loose my soul,
\nI spent on the unimportant wood.<\/p>\n
The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
\nYou know how it is with an April day
\nWhen the sun is out and the wind is still,
\nYou\u2019re one month on in the middle of May.
\nBut if you so much as dare to speak,
\nA cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
\nA wind comes off a frozen peak,
\nAnd you\u2019re two months back in the middle of March.<\/p>\n
A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
\nAnd turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
\nHis song so pitched as not to excite
\nA single flower as yet to bloom.
\nIt is snowing a flake; and he half knew
\nWinter was only playing possum.
\nExcept in color he isn\u2019t blue,
\nBut he wouldn\u2019t advise a thing to blossom.<\/p>\n
The water for which we may have to look
\nIn summertime with a witching wand,
\nIn every wheelrut\u2019s now a brook,
\nIn every print of a hoof a pond.
\nBe glad of water, but don\u2019t forget
\nThe lurking frost in the earth beneath
\nThat will steal forth after the sun is set
\nAnd show on the water its crystal teeth.<\/p>\n
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