dividuality—a “live free or die” kind ofrnspirit like that of the state of New Hampshire,rnwhere most of them were written.rnOn tlieir most primitive level, toolsrnsneh as the ax and scythe aid physical survivalrnby making a clearing in Frost’srnwoods where the trees in “Spring Pools”rn”darken natnre” —where the “blot outrnand drink up and sweep away” the “floweryrnwaters” and “watery flowers.” Wernhave survived as a species because ofrntliese cutting tools and, Frost would say,rnmaintain a sense of personal liberty byrnflieir continued, fliough out-of-date, use.rnSurely, New Fngland’s poet-sage mustrnhave chuckled to himself wlien he answeredrnthe communist press the way herndid. A man of the people? “The peoplernves, and no,” as he once said in responsernto Sandburg’s book. Never anonymois,rnthe worker instead is a farm hand forrnFrost, for hands wield the kind of toolsrnfliat separate, that make one one, not partrnof a bargaining unit.rnThe p e n ^ t h a t third tool on Frost’srnlist—must have baffled those Soviet reportersrnwho, no doubt, could understandrnriie other two, given their flag’s hammerrnand sickle. It had to worry Pravda some,rna pen being the voice’s tool. Flad theyrnread “Mending-Wall,” fliey would havernseen that Frost is as dexterous wifli languagernas his neighbor is with stones.rnScalpel-like, his precise point separatesrnriiat “old-stone savage armed” who won’trngo behind his father’s saving from thernsharp-tongued speaker. The pen isrnmightier than the wall, and its articulahonrndivides light from dark —the applernorchard from flie pine forest—for in flicrnbeginning, as F’rost’s Puritan forebearsrnknew, was flie Word fliat brought orderrnout of chaos.rn”A momentary stav against confusion”rn— PVost’s famous definition for a poemrn—suggests a personal use for thisrnspecial tool: to hold the poet himself together.rn”Definition” is a term we userntoday to describe a healthy bodv shape;rnbut doesn’t the interior world need to bern”defined” as well? Surrounded bv mentalrnillness in his familv and afraid ofrnbreakdown himself, Frost would havernseen more flian a pun in this connecfionrnbetween language and emotional health.rn”I armed mvself against such bones asrnmight be,” he says in “The Census-Taker,”rn”With the pitch-blackened stub of anrnax-handle.” Like that poem’s speaker,rnbut gripping a pen instead, the poet continualK’rnrevisits flie New England of hisrnprivate past, wliere family ghosts hauntrnthe cellar holes.rnFrost’s ver last poem is worfli quotingrnin full. Appropriately, it appears almostrnalone on flie final page of poetry in flierncollected edition of 1969. The symbolismrnof fliese wrought lines on that snowwhiternpage would not have escaped flicrnpoet’s keen eye. He would also havernbeen amused at the epigram that keepsrncool companv with this fierce last lyric.rnTo “get adapted to my kind of fooling,”rnfliat tvvo-liner savs, requires “in- and outdoorrnschooling.” A schooling in pensrnand scythes, perhaps?rnAnd here he is at flie end, an ax still inrnliis hand:rnhi Winter in flie WoodsrnIn winter in flic woods alonern/^gainst the trees I go.rnI mark a maple for ni)- ownrnAnd lay flie maple low.rnAt four o’clock I shoulder ax,rnAnd in the afterglowrnI link a line of shadowy tracksrnAcross flic tinted snow.rnI see in Nature no defeatrnIn one tree’s overthrowrnOr for nuself in ni’ retreatrnb’or yet anoflier blow.rnThis is some scene: an old man’s winterrnday. The battle goes on “against” whateverrndarkens and diminishes, be it madness,rnmaples, or the modern state. Outdoors,rnF’rost cut an actual clearing w iflirnan ax or a scyflie; indoors, using his pen,rnhe opened an emotional wilderness, onernpoem at a finie.rnThat pen has given wav today to thernword “processor,” a term that suggestsrnwhat Kraft does to cheese or Musak, tornsound. We transmit information sornquickly on these screens fliat flic singlernword gets blurred among flie blendedrnmany: Language synthesized, not purified.rnFrost might think. To purifi- flie individualrnword is a deep part of his NewrnEngland heritage, after all, and a pen’srnpoint etches each letter across flie page.rnIn contrast, our tools todav—our “devices,”rnreally —keep us from a sensor-rnparticipation in the physical world. Justrnas an acroinm is a kind of “irtual” word,rnso, too, is the computer worked not bvrnmuscle, but microscopic “chip.” Thisrnchip is a long way from the choppingrnblock, howcser. Though flie communistrnstate that Frost so hated is now largehrngone, our devices of work and leisure, fliernPC and TV, have worked their synthesizingrnpower upon us, blending and processingrnour habits and voices.rnNo wonder so many people boughtrngenerators and guns as December 31,rn1999, approached. Fear is our reason forrnfences, and we are a people afraid becausernso much in our lives is out of ourrncontrol: virtual, intangible.rn”If design g()ern in a tiling so small”rn— as it seems to in Frost’s “Design,” hisrnalleg(5rical poem about a “snow-drop spider”rn—what about the enormous butrninisible webs fliat hold us toda? “Don’trngo there,” we would want to say to fliatrnpoem’s “white niofli,” the same anxiousrnwords we use for a “site” that isn’t, whichrnindeed may be more terrifi ing flian onernfliat is.rnReading Robert Frost again now thatrnhis centun- has closed might just be ourrnown best stay against such confusion.rnBnice CAiemtie}’ is a professor of Englishrnat Eastern Ilhnois University. This essayrnis part of a collection he is compilingrncalled Digging to America.rnTECHNOLOGYrnWhere Will You BernWhen the LightsrnGo Out?rnhy Clay ReynoldsrnIrecenflv experienced the most dreadfulrnfeeling of helplessness and fearrnimaginable in what undergraduate essayistsrncall “our modern world of high technology.”rnI suffered massive computer breakdown.rnTlie failure of a single computer is badrnenough, especialK’ at a point in thernsemester when book orders and course s 1-rnlabi are due and students are sending panick’rne-mails about their diminishingrnchances of pulling a passing grade. Myrnpersonal disaster, though, was not confinedrnto a single machine but encompassedrnboth my university office machinern(hard-drive crash), and my two-yearoldrn”state-of-flie-art” personal computerrn(glitches) as well. The three-year-old “an-rnFEBRUARY 2001/43rnrnrn