‘From the furnace of a star’
Saint Joseph's Abbey, in Spencer Mass., a Trappist monastery.
— Photo by John Phelan
“The monastery is quiet. Seconal
drifts down upon it from the moon.
I can see the lights
of the city I came from,
can remember how a boy sets out
like something thrown from the furnace
of a star…. ‘‘
— From “The Monk’s Insomnia,’’ by Denis Johnson (1949-2017), an American poet. This came from the book Mountain Interval: Poems from the Frost Place, 1977-1986. The Frost Place, in Franconia, N.H., is a museum and poetry center dedicated to Robert Frost, who lived there with his family full time from 1915 to 1920, as he was becoming famous, and then summered there until 1940.
— Photo by Mfwills
‘Into these hills’
In Franconia Notch in 1915. The northern part of Franconia Notch State Park is in the Town of Franconia.
”Because it is the work that is the work
you could take the world itself to mean
yourself. Into these hills you’ve taken for granite,
like the present, you could take place and be one
with the subject of your feeling arising
before you….’’
— “Tourist (Franconia {N.H.} 1986)’’, by Christopher Gilbert (1949-2007), American poet. He was an Alabama native who ended up as a Providence resident.
Sounds from the field
“Franconia Notch” (oil painting, left), by George Albert Frost (1843-1907); Franconia Notch in 2004 (right)
“There was a sound of grouse from the field
of grouse or a box guitar
And the way the storm idled over the mountain
revealing the mountain dissolving in light….’’
— From ‘‘Five Nights in the North Country Solstice,’’ by Kathy Fagan, an American poet. She was the poet-in-residence at The {Robert} Frost Place, in Franconia, N.H. , in 1985.
Fans and the media corrupt sport
Bode Miller in the giant slalom at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy.
“Sport is born clean and it would stay that way if it was the athletes who ran it for the pleasure of taking part, but then the fans and the media intervene and finish up by corrupting it with the pressure that they exercise.’’
— Bode Miller (born 1977), American Olympic and World Championship Gold Medalist and the most successful male U.S. alpine ski racer so far.
He was born in Easton, N.H. (population: 254) and grew up in Franconia, N.H., site of the famous old ski area at Cannon Mountain and what had been The Old Man of the Mountain and a home of Robert Frost.
The current Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway (completed in 1980), which rises to the 4,100-foot summit of Cannon Mountain. The first version (below) built in 1938, was the first passenger aerial tramway in North America.
