Into My Own/Fire and Ice

I first discovered my love of Robert Frost poetry in high school.  Since then, I have found a couple of biographies about his life and the complete collection of his poems.  I flip through the pages and reread the poems on days when the weather keeps me indoors.  As Frost himself wrote, "Read it a hundred times:  it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance.  It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went."  This is so true! When I find a book I enjoy, I like to go back and read it again years later.  There is always something I either missed the first time, or something which impacts me in a new way because of the differences in my own life.

So far, while reading selections from the pods, the stories always trigger a thought in my mind of the poetry by Robert Frost.  While reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I thought of the poem Into My Own.

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I hold them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew...
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

So, I have decided to come Into My Own while reading the literature of this time period.  I want to make my own assumptions of the meaning behind each individual story and use the messages to help make decisions in my life because I believe every book read impacts a person's view on the world around them.

Moments ago, I finished reading At The 'Cadian Ball and The Storm by Kate Chopin.  I was intrigued by the characters.  The chief emotion I felt while reading these stories was desire.  Everyone in the first story desired someone else.  Not all of the characters walked away with the person they wanted.  In the storm, Alcee and Calixta gave into their desire while alone in Calixta's barricaded home.  Whenever I think of desire, I remember the poem Fire and Ice.  Both Alcee's and Calixta's marriages could have been ruined by the fire of their desire. 

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.