robert frost in the fall

I remember first reading Robert Frost in my Dad's office years ago. At that time, we lived up in the mountains, surrounded by trees, which at first I hated because I was so used to living in a city. But I remember that autumn afternoon, when I pulled a book off his library shelf entitled The Poetry of Robert Frost. It was a 1969 edition and the only reason I chose that book in particular was because the cover had a picture of trees, somewhere in the woods, at dusk. It seemed fitting.

Anyway, it was one of those 'snapshot memories' as I call them, reading the poem below in my dad's office, feeling grateful for that home sitting in a large leather chair, watching the falling leaves outside. And even now, years later, it's the one book I pick up to read every year around October (aside, of course, from the Tales of Sherlock Holmes).

So I thought I'd post a favorite:

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.

(you can read another Frost favorite I posted here)