Hiking and Poetry

David and I hiked portions of the Shenandoah National Park yesterday, and I suspect by the time you read this, our bodies will be screaming at us for hiking miles uphill.  (Plus, while it's too early to tell, I'm sure I got "a little sun," which is a euphemism for blondes for "Holy moly, am I pink! Why do I eschew sunscreen, especially this early in the season?")


In dubious honor of this occasion, I searched the Internet for "hiking+poetry" and found a description of the Hyla Brook Nature/Poetry Trail.  There you can wander off a trail and — well, let me have the people at trails.com tell you:

The Hyla Brook Nature/Poetry Trail is certainly the shortest walk in this hiker’s guide, an abbreviated amble barely straying from the meadow that interrupts the woods behind the Robert Frost homestead. It’s a simple stroll, spare and unadorned, like the poetry inspired by the hard realities of life encountered on this farm. Should you arrive, however, with the necessary resource of an inquiring mind, your journey here will expand well beyond the confines of the trail. Special attractions: The poems and observations of a backyard naturalist in the context of his rural environment. A separate tour of Frost's house and barn is also seasonally available.

As a result, I simply must share a Robert Frost poem, courtesy of poemhunter.com.

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the happy bees, The swarm dilating round the perfect trees. And make us happy in the darting bird That suddenly above the bees is heard, The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, And off a blossom in mid air stands still. For this is love and nothing else is love, The which it is reserved for God above To sanctify to what far ends He will, But which it only needs that we fulfill.