Oh, I often think about Robert Frost

 

I often think about Robert Frost’s poem, his “Death of the Hired Hand”; as I too, go about my chores.   As one who takes some pride in OCD, AKA: inappropriate meticulousness; I appreciate attention to detail that others ignore.

In the poem, Silas, the handy man who is dying out of sight, was being pre-eulogized by the wife and his sometime employer, her husband.  Silas was now, maybe worthless, sometimes in the past, valuable.  But after refection, he is acknowledged as being at least, good at some few things.    But:

 

    “What good is he? Who else will harbor him?  At his age for the little he can do?” 

   Well, I recall that he could build a hay pile,    he’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself, straining, not to stand,  not on anything, really.

    To stand or nothing….

as I do as I dig potatoes from a bed I will never step into, much less stand on.  But, also, as I collect firewood, first into the tractor bucket as I cut it in the forest… how might this log fit?  Can I maximize the load and minimize the trips?  Then, as I build the pile from the tractor to the storage outside the door to the house and even as I load the dolly I use to bring in those few pieces that will warm us for a day or two, or more, if we’re lucky because the days are warm.  These efforts stand on nothing.  They are nothings which are things only because.  They are nothings.

 I am a hired hand, valued or not, by my memories, my discipline, to myself, perhaps, only to myself.

 

        Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man Some humble way to save         his self-respect.

         You never see him standing on the hay  He thinks if he could teach him             that, he’d be Some good perhaps to someone in the world.

 

And if you need to read the real thing:

 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44261/the-death-of-the-hired-man