A POEM - THE SOUND OF TREES BY ROBERT FROST

This was taken earlier in the year, on our way to Skyline Drive. We took a minor detour through the town of Sperryville.

I wonder about the trees.

Why do we wish to bear

Forever the noise of these

More than another noise,

So close to our dwelling place?

We suffer them by the day

Till we lose all measure of pace,

And fixity in our joys,

And acquire a listening air.

They are that talks of going

But never gets away;

And that talks wiser and older,

That now it means to stay.

My feet tug at the floor 

And my head sways to my shoulder

Sometimes when I watch trees sway

From the window or the door.

I shall set forth for somewhere,

I shall make the reckless choice

Some day when they are in voice

And tossing so as to scare

The white clouds over them on.

I shall have less to say, But I shall be gone.

~Robert Frost~

RANDOM PHOTO

The last time we were in Sperryville, we took a detour off the main road.  We always like to read the historical markers if we can stop safely.  This one reads:

"Laid out by Francis Thornton, Jr., in 1817.  Sperryville survives as an upper Piedmont crossroads village.  In the early 19th century John Kiger built Conestoga wagons here.  By the 1850s, two turnpikes (Thornton's Gap and Sperryville and Rappahannock) intersected here.  In 1867, the Smoot family, of Alexandria, built a nearby tannery that closed in 1911.  By that time the town boasted four churches, five general stores, one hotel, six mills, numerous shops, a masonic hall, and a population of 350.  Sperryville's wooden residences and visual charm have long made it a familiar stop for seasonal tourists to the Blue Ridge Mountains."