the road not taken

since i quoted, or rather paraphrased, this frost poem in an earlier post today, i decided i'd also share this one.  i don't know if i've been in a particularly poetic or reflective mood lately, or if i'm just at a place in my life as a reader or a writer or just a human where poetry is exceptionally resonant for me, but a lot of poems have come to mind recently.  perhaps i am increasingly drawn to the brevity and "craftedness" of a poem as i get more in touch with the understanding that, for me as a writer, economy of language is a far greater challenge than putting all the details and nuances into writing that drift through my thoughts as i compose.  at any rate, here is an oft-quoted and much beloved versification from the former poet laureate of the united states.  i love how the subtly-evoked idea of choices as a simple fork in the road emphasizes their profound, unknowable impact.  i've been thinking about choices a lot lately, and envisioning life as an ever-unfolding path is a metaphor that really works for me. 

p.s.  m. scott peck can eat bag of dicks for his eighties pop psychology manifesto whose title bastardized this poem, and was unworthy to use it even as an epigraph.

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)  Mountain Interval.  1920.

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.