100 Years of Divergent Paths

Hi guys, Rebecca with another dose of Poetry Corner.  This year marks the 100^th anniversary of “The Road Not Taken,” the well-known Robert Frost poem responsible for generating a million Hallmark posters of country roads that hung on college dorm room walls (including mine, natch). 

This poem is the epitome of decision-making – this way, or that way?  The clear way, or the hard way?  And does taking that less-traveled road really make all the difference?  In our case, yes.  We started our story journey back in 1990, on the way to Florida, on the heavily traveled I-95.  We spent many, many years writing cover letters and basically begging for an agent to read our work.  They wanted “published writers.”  So this year, we took that less-traveled road of self-publishing, and this poem took on a whole new meaning, and we won’t go back. 

Without further ado, I give you the marvelous words of Mr. Frost.

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.