“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” Robert Frost
“Snow?” we asked when we started seeing small piles of it along the roadway. “How can there be snow in October?”
Not quite what we had anticipated.
My parents, sister, and I were traveling from our home outside Atlanta to New England one fall to see the leaves’ changing colors. Mom and Dad had done the trip before, and they wanted to share the beauty of the fall colors with us.
Expecting fall temperatures and weather, we’d packed jackets and sweaters but nothing suitable for a real snowfall. Fortunately, despite the snow the night before, the day’s forecast read fair and warm. The snow was already melting. We pressed on.
A college student at the time, I was taking American Lit among other classes and working part-time. My sister, a few years older than me, had started her career and was now dating someone seriously. This trip would likely be our last one together as a family, so we seized the opportunity to go.
A few days into the trip, we drove into Bennington, Vermont one afternoon after having been on the road since early morning. We’d planned to stay the night at an inn there. But when we tried to check in, the hotel staff gave us some surprising news: the unseasonal winter storm the day before had knocked out the power throughout town. Our hotel had rooms available—just no power.
Even though we wanted to stay in and explore this charming town, we couldn’t do so without some idea of when or if the power would come back on.
Disappointed and tired of being in the car, we decided to keep driving another hour to Albany, NY and stay there. We still had miles to go before we could sleep.
Before leaving the charming Bennington, however, I had an assignment to complete. We’d discovered while planning the trip that the poet Robert Frost was buried in Old Bennington. In my lit class, we’d studied Frost a few weeks before. It was great timing, actually, so my family and I went to the Old First Congregational Church to visit his grave.
In the cemetery, we tread carefully in our tennis shoes, mindful of the snow and debris and our cold feet.
When we stood in front of Frost’s gravestone, I felt such a sense of respect. Not a poet myself, I appreciated his gift and learned more about writing through studying his work. He labored at both poetry and farming in the rural northeast, finally failing at farming and moving with his wife, Elinor, to England in 1912. There, he met and was influenced by British poets who encouraged him. After publishing two full-length collections of poetry, the Frosts returned to New England in 1915 and he soon became one of the most celebrated poets in America. In the 1920s, he began winning awards and honors, including four Pulitzer Prizes and the Congressional Medal of Honor.
I remember being inspired by his gift, by the beauty of the language and images in his poetry, and his determination to keep writing, even though he labored in obscurity for years.
Looking back on that trip, I’m also inspired by the beauty I saw on family vacations like that one to New England, Frost’s native land. One striking orange-red tree in front of a little white church in New Hampshire remains stamped on my memory in brilliant technicolor, although my photo of it has long since faded.
Mom and Dad loved beauty, although they didn’t talk much about it, and they took us along with them to find it.
If I were a poet, I would gather up images, choose well-worn words of heft and depth, and lay down lines that would somehow convey the breadth of gratitude I have for my parents and those road trips.
But I think we’ve traveled enough miles together by now that they already know.
Today’s questions: What historic site have you seen that inspired your or made you think? Where have you seen beauty on vacation? What were your vacations like as a kid? I’d love to hear! Leave a comment below.
For more on Robert Frost, click here.
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