Imagine Being A Swinger of Birches

"Birches" , by Robert Frost, is a symbolic poem about choices, the choices of heaven's truth, and earth's truth. The choices exists because when Frost had first experienced earth's truth he did not like what the senses convey, or can find no meaning in it, then the aspiration toward some kind of heaven became more important, and that heaven's truth becomes a choice. The need to choose is apparent, as Radcliffe Squires points out from his …

…After having taken a mental vacation into the forest, the narrator comes back to reality refreshed, ready for love and ready to face reality again. Isn't this one purpose of all art--paintings, movies, literature, sculpture, music--to refresh us by drawing on our imaginations so that we can use our dreams or our memories to survive day-to-day, matter-of-fact reality? "Birches" is not a poem to winter; it is more a tribute to the power of imagination.