Lyrical Thursdays: Desert Places

Here in Michigan we got a few inches of snow the week after Christmas.  It was nice, really, since we barely got any snow last winter (though the winter before was a doozy).  While snow can be a pain to clean off cars and sidewalks and to drive in, there's still something so magical about it.  It's so peaceful as it falls, dampening the noise of the world and covering everything with the purest white blanket.

The snow inspired me to post a couple of poems about, you guessed it...snow!  I'll post one this week and one next.  The poems are both by Robert Frost - apparently he was very affected by snow!  The first one is called Desert Places.  Like with Millay's Sorrow, I was inspired to do a small painting based on this poem:

These paintings I did based on poems were releases for me.  I did them in the midst of the chaos of my last year of grad school, when I was busy working on very detailed paintings that took most of my concentration to do.  When I needed a break, I'd turn to where I had a few small panels set up and let loose with color, with palette knives, and with various oil painting mediums.  Sometimes I liked the results, sometimes I really hated them!  I was usually aiming to capture the mood of the poem more than the actual image the poet was painting.

I'll let you decide whether this painting captured the poem or not.  Here it is:

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast

In a field I looked into going past,

And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,

But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it - it is theirs.

All animals are smothered in their lairs.

I am too absent-spirited to count;

The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness

Will be more lonely ere it will be less -

A blanker whiteness of benighted snow

With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between the stars - on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.