Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Lost Rock

I took a walk up back the other day. If you've ever traveled the back roads of New England you certainly know that stone walls abound. In many places, they'll run for miles and miles along side the road you're traveling. In most cases, they do a pretty good job at giving you a rough idea of property lines too. Up in the woods behind the house, there's a wall on the right, that runs a pretty significant way, and it's quite wide too. They just don't happen haphazardly to fall there for any old reason. Someone deliberately made that wall. Maybe it was to mark the property line, or maybe it was just to rid some pesky boulders from land to be farmed. As I've mentioned before on this site, we've done our do diligence on researching this land and the people who walked on it long before us. Apparently, this rock was never meant to find a home in any old wall.

From Mending Wall
By Robert Frost
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast."

22 comments:

  1. A poor lone rock. I know how he feels sometimes. At least he has a little moss and clover to keep him company.

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  2. We'll call him Rocky VII. Be careful you don't stub your toe walking through the woods.

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  3. Before I saw your reference to "Mending Wall," Robert Frost and the poem leapt to my mind. I LOVED teaching that poem (and Frost) to my students, and enjoyed hearing their reactions. I read the entire poem to an all-school assembly when the Berlin Wall came down.

    My favorite lines from the poem:
    I see him there
    Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
    In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
    He moves in darkness as it seems to me~

    Well, Birdman, I believe you do NOT walk in darkness!

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  4. You're really gifted.. First time of my life that I'm feeling sad for a rock!

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  5. i love those stone walls. wish we had them in texas.

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  6. "Lost" is relative. That rock knew right where it was all the time, but sometimes we misplace things.

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  7. Love the quote. The photo looks like a peaceful spot.

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  8. Great post! I love your photography, you can even present a simple rock in such a beautiful way!


    LA By Diana Live Magazine

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  9. I don't think that rock knows it is lost.

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  10. I love seeing those old walls.

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  11. We have those wonderful dry stone walls here in KY.

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  12. I've always liked that Frost poem (and I've always liked Frost). The lines are so anti-Republican. But you're raising another philosophical question. How can a rock be lost? Isn't wherever a rock is where it's supposed to be?

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  13. Stone walls are a Hawaii thing too!


    Aloha from Honolulu
    Comfort Spiral
    =^..^=
    > < } } ( ° >

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  14. This remind me of a (relatively) old movie: Romancing the Stone!

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  15. A rock is a rock, is a rock..or not!!

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  16. That is a beautiful rock; I'm glad it kept its independence.
    You would love all the ancient terrace walls all over the Jerusalem Hills.

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