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America is hard to see
Wednesday, October 10, 2012 at 01:44PM 
It's not that I didn't know.
I knew Monday was Columbus Day. One week into my beloved October. No mail.
But for me, Monday was Allissa Day. Cool! And cool.
She arrived around noon, wearing pink and her plastic tiara as always.
I made her a grilled cheese as her daddy and I chatted, waiting for TG to be ready.
Then TG and his son-in-law went off on a grand adventure. Allissa and I followed suit.
If you'd like to see the picture gallery that was the result of her patient posing and my attempts at "real" portrait photography, click HERE.
At any rate, I didn't have time to blog about Columbus Day and now I'm going to. Sort of.
I hope you like the poet Robert Frost because you're going to be hearing from him again later in the week.
And no, not two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and no, not nothing gold can stay.
Not that there's anything wrong with those. Au contraire, mon ami.
But there's more to the man and his work than catchphrases.
By the way are you one of those people who likes what most people like, or do you look around for your own things to like?
I do a little of both but mostly I find that if a person has been proclaimed one of the greatest poets in the English language, he is.
He was awarded not one, not two, not three, but four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. And he deserves to be read.
He was handsome, too. So there.
I have owned my beloved volume The Poetry of Robert Frost -- containing all eleven of his books complete -- for at least thirty years.
And I've never read it cover to cover.
So this is my autumnal reading, and when I dip into its pages on mornings that will soon become frosty (even in South Carolina) I am awed by Frost's genius.
I also love brick. I know, right? That was a segue as sudden as any. And I know lots of people enjoy brick.
But TG and I were in Columbia recently, walking in an alley (long story) and he got a phone call, and while he stopped to chat, I looked around and took these pictures.
I hope you like them and I hope you see as I do in their inherent beauty despite their simplicity, their structure, and their scars, the enduring spirit of America.
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Columbus may have worked the wind
A new and better way to Ind
And also proved the world a ball,
But how about the wherewithal?
Not just for scientific news
Had the Queen backed him to a cruise.
Remember he had made the test
Finding the East by sailing West.
But had he found it? Here he was
Without one trinket from Ormuz
To save the Queen from family censure
For her investment in his venture.
There had been something strangely wrong
With every coast he tried along.
He could imagine nothing barrener.
The trouble was with him the mariner.
He wasn’t off a mere degree;
His reckoning was off a sea.
And to intensify the drama
Another mariner, da Gama,
Came just then sailing into port
From the same general resort,
And with the gold in hand to show for
His claim it was another Ophir.
Had but Columbus known enough
He might have boldly made the bluff
That better than da Gama’s gold
He had been given to behold
The race’s future trial place,
A fresh start for the human race.
He might have fooled Valladolid.
I was deceived by what he did.
If I had had my chance when young
I should have had Columbus sung
As a god who had given us
A more than Moses’ exodus.
But all he did was spread the room
Of our enacting out the doom
Of being in each other’s way,
And so put off the weary day
When we would have to put our mind
On how to crowd but still be kind.
For these none-too-apparent gains
He got no more than dungeon chains
And such small posthumous renown
(A country named for him, a town,
A holiday) as, where he is,
He may not recognize for his.
They say his flagship’s unlaid ghost
Still probes and dents our rocky coast
With animus approaching hate,
And for not turning out a strait,
He has cursed every river mouth
From fifty North to fifty South.
Someday our navy, I predict,
Will take in tow this derelict
And lock him through Culebra Cut,
His eyes as good (or bad) as shut
To all the modern works of man
And all we call American.
America is hard to see.
Less partial witnesses than he
In book on book have testified
They could not see it from outside --
Or inside either for that matter.
We know the literary chatter.
Columbus, as I say, will miss
All he owes to the artifice
Of tractor-plow and motor-drill.
To naught but his own force of will,
Or at most some Andean quake,
Will he ascribe this lucky break.
High purpose makes the hero rude;
He will not stop for gratitude.
But let him show his haughty stern
To what was never his concern
Except as it denied him way
To fortune-hunting in Cathay.
He will be starting pretty late.
He’ll find that Asiatic state
Is about tired of being looted
While having its beliefs disputed.
His can be no such easy raid
As Cortez on the Aztecs made.
~Robert Frost~
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Happy Wednesday!
Reader Comments (7)
I always love your pictures, and they go well with Robert Frost's poetry! Thanks for the belated Columbus Day post!
Wonderful "waiting around". I too love Robert Frost, I don't think I've read everything of his either. But, what a wonderful thought for a graduation gift for my boy, the "future" Pulitzer Prize winning poetry writer. (A mother can dream). I'm going over now to check out Alissa.
Oh, I LOVE that SmugMug link! Isn't she a DollBaby?!!~
Your photos are so Cool Jenny!
hughugs
I love old buildings too! I especially love the photo with the doorway, trimmed out with vines and colorful leaves. The textures of old buildings are just irresistible to photograph!
The collected poems, complete and unabridged, The Poetry of Robert Frost? That one? I own it too. Jeff and I went to tour his house in New Hampshire many years ago. I adore his poetry, as long as you don't assign me to find the symbolism in it. He has a way of saying important things in an unassuming way. My kind of guy.
I'll add it to the list of Things that the Pirate and the Hobbit Have in Common.
That, and Mitt.
P.S. #19.
Belated comment, but I've been tied up with life. I love all of the photos of the buildings, and Robert Frost is so wonderful. Unlike the Hobbit, I don't have the collected poems of his but maybe I can put that on my Christmas list. And I'll have to check out #19 too...........G