THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
By Robert Frost
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.
From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1916, 1923, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1939, 1947, 1949, © 1969 by Holt Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Copyright 1936, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1953, 1954, © 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine
Source: www.robertfrost.org
Every once in a while, when I was a kid, my family would go on a leisurely Sunday drive. At some point during the drive, more often than not, my Dad would end up taking us down a dirt road. Being the kids we were, my Brother, Sister and I would let out a groan from the back seat as the car made the turn onto the dusty, bumpy road.
Now, as an adult, I do the driving. I log a lot of miles but little of it is leisurely. Or, rather, I should say, little of it is purely for the sake of leisure. Oddly enough, when time allows, more often than not, I find that I seek out the so called "road less traveled". Rarely are the roads I take dirt roads in the truest sense but, if you think about it, underneath the pavement of the "road less traveled" there is a dirt road.
On more than one occasion, various people have suggested to me that I keep a journal of my travels. A record of the people I have been privledged enough to meet and the places I've been fortunate enough to visit.
People who know me well know I tend to be verbous in the written form. (A good friend of mine has a better name for it: Windbag.) They also know that I like to take photographs. They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I guess you could call "Photos From The Road" is a windbag's Ode to the Dirt Road and Robert Frost in photographic form. I'm not the world's best photographer but I don't think you need to be record the images of a life lived.
Looking back, I'm happy my Father ingored those groans coming from the back seat;
that has made all the difference.
