Poetry - The road not taken

There are few things that can capture the essence of a moment in life better than poetry. You can write a novel about love and loss, you can embellish it with lovable characters and a strong plot, but it's very hard to break a subject down to its core that way. Poems, on the other hand, can be as short as two lines and carry as much meaning as twenty pages of a novel. I love headstrong, passionate poetry. Words are the juice of life.

One of the most beautiful peoms that I have ever read is 'The road not taken' by Robert Frost. This is how it goes:

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 kep 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.

This poem is, in my opinion, about the decisions we make in life. We have to choose between two roads, two destinies if you will, trusting them to lead us on our way through life. Sometimes we take the smooth road, sometimes the thorny one, but as we know life, we will never glimpse the place of their crossing again. It is only in memory that we can go back to that yellow road and wonder whether we have made the right choice.

That's why I have chosen to post this poem: it's a time of decision-making in my life, and the life of many of my friends, and we are all a little afraid of taking that first step. Overwhelmed by possibilities, we are often presented with more three, even four roads to take. And each one twists and turns out of sight after a few steps. It's a leap of faith, and sometimes, especially in times like these, it can make all the difference.

Frost's poem is courageous, the lyrical I chooses one of the paths, however wistfully, and makes his way through life. He does not tell us whether he was truly happy with that choice, but then again, do we really want to know? Would it make our choices easier or more difficult? I think we all need to find our own road through that wood called life, and for everyone, this poem has a different end.

And maybe, even if our lives don't turn out the way we had planned or hoped they would be, we can at least look back at the road we traveled and say that we have enjoyed the journey. Isn't that what makes life the fullest and most beautiful? Wonderful memories of what has been, and looking ahead at the road that is still to be traveled. 

Love, x