Frostiana it was called, strangely I thought, when first encountered,

Those prescient rhyme-words I would come to love so well,

Words lovingly set to music by some word-music lover,

Unlike all those other poems that make sense only

To word-rapt poets of meaningless syntax,

And a few reading pretenders,

But not to me.

 

It was so easy to envision, in the eyes of my mind, those two paths

Diverging in that old yellow wood. I envisioned myself standing

At their vertex, and looking far down the one on the left,

Looking way down it as far as I could, to where it bent

In the undergrowth; and tho I could not see its end

How innocently, how credulously I chose it,

 That one on the left, forgetting instantly

The other, the one on the right,

Forgetting even to look.

There I went.

 

Many sweet years have been passed on that other road leading to the right,

Dissimilar to the many years passed, before returning to try it, instead

Of that leftward road which, after its bend in the undergrowth,

Long after, reached its abrupt, unforeseeable terminus,

Leaving wanderers like me in bleak wilderness,

Inexperienced, unready, and forced to learn

The things mature people always learn

To the lasting benefit of society:

Appreciation of opposites.

You can’t be grateful

Til you’ve known

Ungrateful.

 

Decades later now I give grateful thanks to the leftward leg of two roads

That diverged in the yellow wood, as my sojourn on this right road

For these many years has taught me how to be appreciative

And properly grateful for life’s spectrum of experiences;

I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t gone there.

It was all good, I’m now able to see,

Here with old age’s clearer eyes.

Thank you Robert Frost, for

Lovely poetic words that

Make so much

Sense.

 

– Wm. D. Coffey, January 1, 2025

 

*               *              *               *               *

 

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

– Robert Frost, 1915