Walking and Poetry #3

If you have read my previous postings, you will notice that I have a tendency to look for poetic connections when I am walking, connections to walking in general, but also to the specifics of where I am going and what I am doing.

I was reminded of this last weekend when I was out walking the Aargauer Weg in Switzerland. On parts of the route, as the photos show, I was walking through woodland. With the trail stretching out in front of me, I was reminded of the lines of Robert Frost:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

 

OK, so there are some big differences between my circumstances at the weekend and those of Robert Frost. I was out walking in Switzerland on a relatively sunny day in September. He was riding near Beaconsfield, England, on a snowy evening in winter. But with the trail stretching out in front of me, I felt like I was being invited to take up a life of vagrancy and follow the trail forever. “La vraie liberté c’est le vagabondage”. I think the words come from Jean Jacques Rousseau, though I can’t be sure. They translate as « True freedom is vagrancy ». Freedom is something we all desire, and there are times when I would dearly love to take to the trails, go on over the horizon, and never look back.

But there are promises to keep. The need to earn a living, the demands of family, the desire to spend time with friends, and many other commitments has to be fulfilled. And they will be there for a long time. So I slip in some walking when I can and go out on the trail. I just wish that I could do it more often. I guess those are the complexities of modern life: compromising what we have to do with what we want.

But still, when I see that trail stretch out into the woods, I cannot help but yearn for the freedom that it offers, and I remember the words of Frost’s poem.