Fr Ian writes:

In a previous blog entry I posted Wendell Berry’s poem The Peace of Wild Things. Several people have remarked to me how helpful they found the poem. Since then I have been reflecting on the comfort and spiritual strength which some poems have brought me, and others. I would be interested to know of a poem which has spiritually comforted or strengthened you.

Some years ago I sent a friend who was facing turmoil in life a copy of the poem, On a Tree fallen across a Road by the American poet Robert Frost. My friend remarked later on the strength he had received from it, and how he in turn passed it on to others.

Like Berry, Frost often uses images from nature with profound effect. In this poem he offers insight to those facing struggles in life.

On a Tree Fallen across The Road

The tree the tempest with a crash of wood

Throws down in front of us is not to bar

Our passage to our journey’s end for good

But just to ask us who we think we are

Insisting always on our own way so.

She likes to halt us in our runners tracks,

And make us get down in a foot of snow

Debating what to do without an ax.

And yet she knows obstruction is in vain:

We will not be put off the final goal

We have it hidden in us to attain,

Not though we have to seize earth by the pole

And, tired of aimless circling in one place,

Steer straight off after something into space.