Comics adaptation of “Birches” by Robert Frost | julian peters comics
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Then what is the answer?– Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted
and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will
not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear
the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history… for contemplation or in fact…
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness,
the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty
of the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man’s pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken.
— Robinson Jeffers
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
by Shel Silverstein
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Yeah, I was a Swinger of Birches, and anything else that was climbable when I was 7-8 or so. Then a branch broke, I came down fast and hard and broke my left elbow in two places, Spent all summer in a cast, and when the cast came off I couldn’t move the elbow. Took another month or two to get it loose enough to use. That’s when I learned to climb only when necessary, and then to first check the stability and weight bearing capacity of whatever I was going to climb. That was 80 years ago, and have yet to break another bone.
Birches grow wild in clumps in rural NE MA, and I, too, swung on them. But I was lucky. I fell off a bending trunk more than once, but never got anything other than bruises and scrapes. Great fun if you are young and small.