"Birches" - How the trees become a vehicle of transcendence for Frost Avani Mittal 12th Grade

The poem 'Birches' was written by Robert Frost in his forties. Being at such an age, Frost desired to relive his childhood and the comfort it provided, but he also wanted to live and experience old age. Just like the birch trees, Frost also swings from wanting to go back to his childhood momentarily and then returning to Earth to live the rest of his life, because as much as he looked forward to the future, he also wanted to let go of his present weariness and go back to being as carefree, reckless and adventurous as a child.

Frost's poem begins with a description of the birches laden with snow on a 'sunny winter morning.' The birch trees are bent by the weight of the of snow and ice storms, but the poet prefers to imagine that it was a boy swinging birches that caused the trees to bend and not the 'truth', breaking in with all her 'matter of fact’ and thus shattering his imaginings. The poet prefers here his own plausible explanation of the bent birches rather than a real one. Hence it is at the very outset that Frost conveys how human it is to transcend the realities of life by transporting oneself into the realms of imagination - not fantasy!

The poet creates an image of a boy- an innocent, lonely boy, 'who went out and in...