My life with a poem.

I have a long history with this lesser known Robert Frost poem, the name of which escapes me at this moment. I was in second grade when I first encountered it. My teacher had given us all an assignment to memorize a poem to present to the class. Now, I'm a teacher myself, so I know that what the teacher had in mind was something out of A Child's Garden of Verse, or a cereal ad, or Dr. Suess, but my mother's friend had recently "discovered" Robert Frost requiring my mother to go out and buy both of his books, hardcovers, and considering this is the woman who rinsed the plastic wrap from my school lunches so she could use it again the next day, that was a big deal. It was therefore decided that if that huge investment came to nothing else at least I could impress all the second grade staff at school by reciting a poem from it.

I don't know why that particular one caught my eye, but I liked the rhythm of those first few lines even if I didn't understand them a bit. But my mother had her eye on the one on the opposite page, something about a hoe at the end of a row and a tool turning into a weapon. I could probably recite it for you still, but what's the point? Plowshares for swords, subtle noises from Vietnam,... but it seemed pretty senseless to me at the time. I memorized both poems, recited the one my mother chose for me, but never let go of the second one.

"It is right there betwixt and between

the orchard bare and the orchard green"

How many times have those lines popped into my head across this curious life I've lived? Haven't I always felt that I was betwixt and between something else? Here, but not quite there. Good, but never that good. Past the beginning, never quite at the end. What amazes me is the many, many different interpretations the poem has taken on for me. Each time it has arisen, as if out of the dust, giving me words to ponder, a mantra to recite, always at a time of change or crisis. And like my faithful companion, Hunter, it always managed to lead me out of whatever place I was lost in. Only then would its meaning really speak to me, telling me where I was if nothing else. It took me many years to learn that all it takes is a road sign to remind me that I'm never really lost. I'm always somewhere.