I’ve been a devoted reader of the Vermont Almanac since the first one appeared five years ago, and I am pleased as punch to be among the contributors to this year’s volume. Unlike conventional almanacs, which tell you what’s coming in the way of weather, eclipses of the sun and moon, etc., the Vermont Almanac takes a backward look at what’s been happening in this state in the past 12 months from the perspective of those who work with or simply live on the land. My piece tells the story of how Robert Frost came to write a Christmas poem called “To a Young Wretch,” about the theft of one of the poet’s young spruce trees in 1936. One of the two boys who rustled the tree (they were both nabbed by the South Shaftsbury constable as they dragged it home) is now 93 years old. I visited him at his assisted living facility in Bennington not long ago and will drop off a copy of the Almanac for him later today. The stanza that concludes the poem is one of Frost’s best:

And though in tinsel chain and popcorn rope
My tree, a captive in your window bay,
Has lost its footing on my mountain slope
And lost the stars of heaven, may, oh, may
The symbol star it lifts against your ceiling
Help me accept its fate with Christmas feeling.

I needed a new headshot for the contributors page, and I wanted a face to match the tone of the story: