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.

Author: Robert Frost

Lately, I am taken back to a little school in Nova Scotia, to my grade 5 discovery of this, my most favorite of poems..."The Road Not Taken".

Even then, at such a formative age, this poem held such meaningful imagery .

I remember wishing I could paint all that it brought to my imagination.

I have been pressed, it would seem on every side, by the burden of seeing a harvest in loved ones' lives that is anything but desirable. 

I have questioned myself, God and others about the stark differences between my life and theirs that have at times threatened to overwhelm me.

Today, I ponder Robert Frost's poem and it's meaning as well as imagery once again...could the answer be that simple?

I chose a different path.