This blog is mostly about images. A photo captures a moment in time and lets us slow down long enough to see the rich texture of the life all around us. It's mostly for my own amusement, but if you stumbled here somehow, please enjoy.

Friday, September 28, 2012

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.

I've always been a little subject to the angst of pondering whether another route would have been better somehow; faster (my usual concern), less hassle, better sights, something...

As my son (pictured) recently pointed out, Frost concludes his poem "with a sigh", leaving us to think perhaps he had a bit of that same contemplative reflection with a twinge of unresolved wondering, not fully formed as regret, but rather a curiosity born of some impatience.

I think the answer is in Paul's admonition on contentment (Phil. 4:11).

1 comment:

  1. Ahhhh, a poem I memorized after our first trip to the mountains, in 1991...

    Your pondering is a question that comes up periodically when we're traveling and sometimes when we're hiking, but particularly when there's a bit of traffic due to rush hour or an accident. I'm pretty quick to look for another way, with the philosophy that I'd rather keep moving than continue to sit still (some might call that impatience!). But once you take that new route, it's rare that you know for sure if it was the right choice or not - you really just have to move forward and be content with the new choice, unless you're traveling with somebody else that sticks with the original route, or you happen to come upon an obvious semi-truck or another unique vehicle that you know you passed BEFORE you took the new route and somehow they got in front of you, in spite of your obvious skill at finding a "new and better" path. That's always a humbling moment in our van...

    Sigh....

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