Robert Frost and home

I have always loved the poetry of Robert Frost...probably because I remember my mother reciting poems by him when I was young. I used to listen to some of his poetry on cassette tapes (back when I had a car with a cassette deck.) Since the one I liked doesn't come in CD version, I recently bought a CD of his poetry that is actually read by him. In both versions, one poem always stays close to my heart, "The Death of the Hired Man."

In this particular poem, a hired hand who has worked for a couple for many years during harvest time (and had eventually become old and not very dependable) returns one last time (looking very poorly.) Even though the man had a brother who lived close (but had not spoken to him in years), he returned to this place. The poem is like a conversation between the man and woman and the woman described why the hired man returned there, instead of his brother's house. She says...

“Warren,” she said, “he has come home to die:
You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.” 115

“Home,” he mocked gently.

“Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us 120
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.”

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”

“I should have called it
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”

I've thought about this poem over the years...when relatives/adult children/etc come around and want to stay or when those close to me have similar things happening around them, I think of the circumstances and relate back to this poem.

It'd be nice if everyone in the world had some place they could call 'home' to return to in times of need or confusion.