Frozen Beauties

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost: Nothing gold can stay

Als ich vor wenigen Tagen durch den Rosengarten im Hamburger Stadtpark schlenderte, staunte ich über die vielen Blüten, die der frühe Frost für eine kleine Weile konserviert hatte. Ihre vergängliche Schönheit scheint mir gut zu Robert Frosts Zeilen zu passen: Wer weiß, dass Veränderung, Verlust und Schmerz zu einem Leben außerhalb des Garten Eden dazu gehören, der wundert sich vielleicht auch nicht, dass „dawn goes down to day“. Inzwischen zeigt das Thermometer im Stadtpark wieder zweistellige Zahlen im Plus, der erste eisige Sonnenschein ist novembrigem Schmuddelwetter gewichen und der Wind bläst Laub und Blütenblätter in den Matsch.

All the difference

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost: The Road not taken

Burning like Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost: Fire and Ice

Inzwischen ist der Himmel über Hamburg wieder bleigrau, aber gestern schienen sogar die Eisschollen auf dem Stadtparksee zu brennen. Mein Unterbewusstes spülte, warum auch immer, das Gedicht Fire and Ice von Robert Frost nach oben.

Swinging birches

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.

I’d like to get away from earth a while
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Aus: Robert Frost „Birches“

Das Wittmoor nördlich von Hamburg lohnt zu jeder Jahreszeit einen Besuch. Die Bilder entstanden auf einem Spaziergang Anfang Oktober. Gerade fiel mir das passende Gedicht in die Hände: „Birken“ von Robert Frost. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. Definitely.