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| Birch Trees - Gisele D. Thompson |
As
a visual artist, my inspiration comes primarily through my eyes. A walk in the
woods, or even through my neighborhood can provide me with the sensory inputs
that can be the start of a new painting, or even the beginnings of a new
understanding of color or composition.
Robert
Frost, spent many years here in New Hampshire at both his family farm in Derry
NH, which is open to the public, as well as The Frost Place educational center for poetry and the arts in the White
Mountains in Franconia, NH. Sometimes I
like to think that I might ramble down the same “road less traveled” in search
of inspiration and reflection that Frost might have.
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
As ice-storms do. 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.
(excerpt) from Birches by Robert Frost
Source:
The
Poetry of Robert Frost (1969)
To see and purchase Gisele's art visit her Etsy site.
