The Woodpile

Yuri Vasendin

The Woodpile

Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day,

I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here.

No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.'

The hard snow held me, save where now and then

One foot went through. The view was all in lines

Straight up and down of tall slim trees

Too much alike to mark or name a place by

So as to say for certain I was here

Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.

A small bird flew before me. He was careful

To put a tree between us when he lighted,

And say no word to tell me who he was

Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.

He thought that I was after him for a feather—

The white one in his tail; like one who takes

Everything said as personal to himself.

One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.

And then there was a pile of wood for which

I forgot him and let his little fear

Carry him off the way I might have gone,

Without so much as wishing him good-night.

He went behind it to make his last stand.

It was a cord of maple, cut and split

And piled—and measured, four by four by eight.

And not another like it could I see.

No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.

And it was older sure than this year's cutting,

Or even last year's or the year's before.

The wood was gray and the bark warping off it

And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis

Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.

What held it though on one side was a tree

Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,

These latter about to fall. I thought that only

Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks

Could so forget his handiwork on which

He spent himself, the labor of his ax,

And leave it there far from a useful fireplace

To warm the frozen swamp as best it could

With the slow smokeless burning of decay.

Robert Frost

Mr. Frost, you puzzle. You speak lightly, as though we are friends to whom you were merely giving the details of the day. And yet – we know something is being said, something that matters (enough for you to write about, and as our friend, we trust your judgment), but it is so quickly spoken, it escapes us. What does this wary bird and this forgotten woodpile in the woods signify? Is simply it to say that we might be interested to know how in this bewildering, amorphous place we have come to, with so few distinguishing points that would help us find our way (and where all we know is that we are 'far from home'), there is a bird who behaves in a curiously human manner, and an abandoned woodpile made with obvious precision and effort? To know that even in this pathless wood there are signs of care, of vibrant life, instinct and movement, and that these things too, are paths, are ways along which to travel, ways of knowing where we are? Is that it? With you, Mr. Frost, I am never sure.