I believe, sometimes, that the best choice is the most obvious one. It is why my favorite Shakespeare play is “Romeo and Juliet,” my favorite movie “Jaws,” and my favorite beer Allagash White. With some things, there’s no need for street cred or deep cuts.
So it should come as no surprise that my favorite poem by my favorite New England poet is “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. It is filled with imagery and feeling: The woods are “filled up with snow,” it is the “darkest evening of the year,” and the only sounds are the “sweep of easy wind and downy flake.” Goosebump-level stuff.
In the winter where I live, the frost creeps up the windows on the coldest nights. The house, cozied up in the soft glow of scented candles, blankets, and a roaring wood stove, seems smaller. The inhospitable outside is a place we go only out of necessity these days.
We drink differently in the winter. The ABVs rise as our pace declines. We do this to slow down time, to stave off the inevitable. We sip and we savor. The silence of the winter will roar to life eventually—in the morning, maybe, when kids plead for their sleds or when the deer make tracks on the virgin white of my front yard.
Outside my frosted window, the temperature hasn’t hit double digits all day, and it won’t until tomorrow. Even the icicles shiver. Inside, the wood crackles warmly and the house creaks against the cold. A dog snores at my ankles. This Barleywine should last me all night.
