My spirit felt so heavy last night, minus day four of the election, that I found myself thinking this morning of a line from Robert Frost's poem "Birches":
I'd like to get away from earth awhile.
I'd like to get away, but I made a commitment to contact at least ninety likely Democratic voters before the polls close on Tuesday and encourage them to go vote (and help them find or verify their polling place).
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
There are lots of birch trees in Canada. Maybe I could recruit those ninety voters to join me there. We could all come back after "the end of faith" and the end of partisan politics. After the time it was possible for men like Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff and Karl Rove to flourish. After the time it was possible for a man we despise to be "elected" president.
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