“FIRE and ICE” …by Robert Frost, (1874 -1963 )
"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire,
But, if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice is also great... and would suffice.”
Although this powerful poem was written in 1920 I feel that his dire predictions are coming closer with each passing year. The greed and lust for power and superiority that we are experiencing in today’s world is what I feel when I read these lines. Desire left unchecked becomes fire and can consume us quickly. Hate, on the other hand, is a much slower killer. It turns us into unfeeling human beings with hearts of ice.
Robert Frosts poem is warning us … telling us that we’d better learn to live with one another and to share our lives and our resources or we are doomed to pay the consequences.
War...famine...fire or ice ? It matters little...they all suffice.
posted by Ginnie at 2:30 PM
7 Comments:
Your thoughts are also deep and poetic. Ultimately, I guess the world will end in fire as the sun expands and cooks it in its death throes. But that will be in billions of years, and our kind will most likely be long gone by then.
I try to stay positive, but it's difficult. I'm not sure that things are worse or whether we simply have more press coverage.
Robert Frost was a most complicated poet. His benign appearance, enhanced by his halo of white hair, reinforced an image his personality and his poetry do not bear out.
Life is hard. Life is uncertain. And the end is sure. Not messages most of us want to hear, much less ruminate upon.
I do believe there is more greed and lust for power now than ever before. And our own government is enhancing that by making more opportunities for an ever wider expanse between those who hold the power and money and those who do not.
And this is why, to borrow from another author, I spend as much time "cultivating my garden" - even tho I realize I will probably not be here to see these new camellias reach 15, let alone 20, feet... maybe not even 10. But I plant them anyway for someone to enjoy after I am gone.
It is hard to think about the world's woes while weeding one's beans, watering little tomato plants, or picking the world's sweetest strawberries.
But, alas, when I come in to rest, there is the computer or the TV bringing me back to the cruel reality of man's inhumanity to man in our nation Under Greed, in Greed we trust. And then all the pictures to remind me of all those kids who died so some already rich old man can make more money.
But, study history and it has probably always been so.
Think I will go back to my garden.
But thanks for the reminder of Robert Frost. Brilliant man.
Indeed. As a freshman at the University of Minnesota in 1961 I heard Frost speak to our class. It was a moment I've never forgotten....
I agree, Ginnie. I am totally dismayed at how terrible people are to each other today. And it seems that power and greed are the most important things.
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