Robert Frost's "The Hill Wife" and the plight of displaced people--

Robert Frost's "The Hill Wife" set of five short poems haunts me. Maybe it's because I understand the plight of the wife who is perpetually nervous, living out in the middle of nowhere (I don't, but I have). Maybe it's the fraught imaginings about what --or who-- might be hiding in the woods, in the darkened house, up the road. The tree that taps at the window reminds me of the ghost at the window at the beginning of Wuthering Heights; again, an overworked imagination, part of an emotionally stressed character. I, too, have had long nights of dark worries. I get it. 

The part that truly sticks with me, though, is in the very first poem, titled "Loneliness" with the subscript (Her Word). 

Her word? Are they not lonely? Does she feel the anxiety and isolation, but it's not physically true? And that is never explained. I get the sense of division between the man and his wife already, just with that subscript. And then the poem begins: "One ought not to have to care/ So much as you and I/ Care...." Ought is not only a word that comes from an older diction (this is Frost, but still), but "ought not to have to care"? What is missing in their lives, at least as she sees it? This could be the poster poem for seasonal affective disorder, but it's a lot more than that. There's an unhealthy preoccupation with the birds and their leaving and coming back; the birds, on the other hand, have their own concerns, their "built or driven nests." But even then, "driven nests" is still freighted with concern. Driven, in this case, refers to something broken, blown away, lost, and that must be repaired or replaced. What a way to end this poem. It's devastating.

Maybe it's the time of year that makes this poem bubble up in my memory. I drive by nearly-leafless trees, and I see the rough nests made of leaf litter and twigs, big ones, nestled up in the higher branches. I know that those birds don't go anywhere, but the image stays with me. Or when you get a Christmas tree, and deep in the balsam recesses there's the remainder of a tiny woven nest. It's supposed to be lucky, but I doubt the displaced bird will find it so-- even if the bird has gone south for the winter, the nest will not be there to return to. 

We all need somewhere to return to, and I think the Hill Wife in Frost's poem feels displaced; this is her house with her husband, but it doesn't feel like her home. And, if you go on to read the rest of the poem, this is true; she doesn't fit, and she leaves. It's sad, but the ending of the five poem set is earned-- sometimes, leaving is the resolution needed, the nest is a "driven" one, even if not physically. I am thinking about all the displaced people in Ukraine, in Gaza and Israel, in all the parts of the world stricken by extreme violence. Where are their nests? The people in Acapulco are still waiting for aid to come. They have no homes. The people in Afghanistan, the victims of those horrible earthquakes, have no homes. And here, in the United States, all the people suffering from domestic violence, from being displaced due to rents being impossible to afford, from floods and fires and disasters: they have no homes. 

I am grateful for mine. 

Have a good day,

C

LONELINESS
(Her Word)

One ought not to have to care
  So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
  To seem to say good-bye;

Or care so much when they come back     
  With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
  Too glad for the one thing

As we are too sad for the other here—
  With birds that fill their breasts      
But with each other and themselves
 And their built or driven nests.