IT WAS ROBERT FROST who wrote that “Nature’s first green is gold.” In that glorious eight-line poem, Frost went on to assert that “nothing gold can stay.” The majority of Western critics have taken Frost to mean that anything beautiful must fade, that nothing can remain pure. When I first read the poem in the early 1970s, that’s what I figured he meant, too. But our understanding of poetry, like our understanding of life, transforms with age. Standing here today, at fifty-four, I no longer think Frost’s poem is about fading glories. Instead, I believe it’s about triumph.
When I first encountered Robert Frost’s poetry, I was living on the streets of St. Catharines, Ontario. The library was my home then, and one day I came across an old copy of New Hampshire, a collection of Frost’s that also contained “Two Look at Two” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
Something in Frost’s words and phrasing caught me. New Hampshire was published in 1923, fifty years before I first cracked it open. Frost’s world and mine were vastly different. My life then was defined by concrete, mission beds and meal tickets. But the way Frost wrote about the land called to me. I sat with his book at my favourite library carrel by the window for days. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” made me sad when I first read it. My own life seemed composed of nothing but endings, fade-outs and disappearances. Now, with Deb and I having just spent our first Christmas together as husband and wife, I see life much differently.
Our first few Christmases were celebrated with other waifs. One year we celebrated with a retired British diplomat and his wife. Another year we shared a meal with a friend whose family could not afford to get her and her boyfriend home. Deb’s kids always joined us, sometimes with their dad and their great-aunt, but for the most part these affairs were patched together.
Once Deb and I moved to the lake, Christmas became a gathering with the kids. One year, we all walked up into the back country, and I toted back a fine young spruce that we decorated together. Another year, the two girls brought their beaus, and the four of them built a combination yurt/igloo in the front yard. After they left, there was always a residue of sadness. It took a few days for us, Deb especially, to get our emotional equilibrium back. This year, the kids came up a week before the big day, because their young schedules were so full. Deb and I were on our own for Christmas Day, and we made it glorious.
We rose early and exchanged our gifts. Then we loaded the car with fourteen bags stuffed with presents for the tenants of the rooming house. A good friend of ours, Doreen Willis, had spent a big part of the year filling those bags, wrapping each article individually. We also had personal gifts for the two women who live at the house and help us look after the place.
We went from door to door delivering the gifts, along with grocery coupons, cookies and other treats. We had hugs for those who could allow them, handshakes and a clap on the shoulder for the others. The smiles that broke on people’s faces were heartwarming. They were touched to be remembered, included and honoured. Fourteen bags of presents. Fourteen souls. Fourteen lives.
After we left the house, we went skiing. It was a marvellous, crisp sunny day, and we skimmed down the hill with abandon, feeling like kids again. Then we drove to Jon and Irene Buckle’s home to share dinner with their family. There were thirty of them, and Deb and I were soon lost in the throng of sons, daughters, in-laws, grandkids, great-grand-kids and dogs.
Driving home along the pitch-dark road through ridges, valleys and gulches and then along the flats, we were tired but filled with happiness. Alone together. Seven Christmases. Seven years. Seven glories.
There are times when Deb and I envy those whose lives are built around family activities. There are times when we wonder why we are more like polite strangers than blood kin with most members of our own families. But there are also times when we can’t wait for grandchildren, when we look forward to fabulous feasts with people strewne verywhere through our little mountain home.
Nothing gold can stay. Each Christmas leading up to this one shone in its own way. Those seven years aren’t gone; instead, they’ve become the gold of our time here, our treasure, part of our stories. That’s what I think Robert Frost was getting at. Riches are not defined by gold, and a brief moment can remain pure forever in the heart. Life demands that we cherish our memories, that we triumph.