The Pasture…as seen from My Field

The vantage point I have in my field this particular day, was actually IN the field.  I had set up my folding chair and supplies right in the middle, so as to draw views all around me.  This view is over towards Mr. Whicker’s farm.  His cows were not out that day as they often are, grazing in his fenced in, front yard pasture.  When I’m in my field, I often have this Robert Frost poem running in my head.

The first time I read this poem was in a hand-written note to me by my husband of 23 years.  But at the time of writing, we had just barely begun to get to know each other as seniors at Appalachian State University.  I had tracked down his campus mail-box and was sending him notes filled with my favorite quotes and poems…this was one of the first notes he, the English major, wrote back to me:

The Pasture

By Robert Frost 1874–1963 Robert Frost

//
I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.

I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.
Perhaps today, I’ll take my book of Frost’s poetry and my sketchbook up to the Field…to read and draw and “clean the Pasture Spring” of my mind…
You come too!

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