From Socrates to Frost

Tales of the Socratic Future : V

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Socratic discourses gave way to a plain sight and common understanding of issues in the American experience. Frost epitomized the experience through his poems that simply put into words what the eye saw as naturally existing. In that it relies on one more factor for its purpose. This is the normal experience of Americans in being simply themselves.

 

The river Milk flows from Canada and joins up with the Missouri. Thereafter it flows south and joins the Mississippi. As it passes the entire expanse of America a poet is likely to see in that the life and course of a vital element in the life of the country. Its supply of water for fulfilling man's purposes. But there is more.

 

The early Indic experiences described their world view in relation to the topography of the land. No doubt this continues to be important in some part of us. They described the world as a woman with the words ' the mountains are your breasts and the rivers your streams.' Perhaps the naming of a river as ' milk ' shows American propensities in this regard.

 

In the poem, ' A Brook in the City,' Frost described the experience of a river lost as a city was built on it. ' The meadow grass could be cemented down, From growing under pavements of a town;.' How does that line depict the American experience today? Frost provides a view in the poem. '  But I wonder if from its being kept forever under,The thoughts may not have risen that so keep, This new-built city from both work and sleep.'

 

A man keeps down something similar in himself that sometimes keeps him awake nights. Perhaps its an impulse to ask the question, ' After Frost, then what ... .' In the Indic experience it broke out into the greatest war a man may have known in his heart. It is the quest for the truth of what is fair in the lives of all living beings.

 

We continue that today with new found insights into what we are. We are discovering them even as we undertake our daily living. It would have made Socrates proud.