Werifesteria

Werifesteria: to wander longingly through the forest in search of mystery

Dry leaves crunched under my feet. Spring had yet to awaken, but the snow was gone, revealing the colorless landscape.

The trees stood close together, towering above. Branches stretched towards the clouds that loomed overhead. They twisted and twirled together forming a puzzle too high to solve.

Fog lingered close to the ground, seeping through the matted grass and broken twigs. My steps broke its calm demeanor, slicing it in half so it swam in opposites ways.

I pulled my jacket closed, holding it along the collar with my gloved hands. The air had a chill that matched the forest.

The sun shed cloudy light on the path, though I hardly stuck to it. The point of walking through a forest in the morning wasn’t to stick to the journey others take, it was to explore the area in a new way. It was to open eyes to different directions and different lives.

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 sign

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two reads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Robert Frost

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Now I know that this Robert Frost poem is one of the most “misread” poems, like, ever. Most people remember the last line and attribute the whole poem to carving out our own way and not following the pack, even through earlier lines tell us the paths are the same, which leads to a meaning of us choosing to think that as an excuse (good or bad) for the outcome.

…does that make any sense?

Anyway, I grew up thinking the former, so that’s why I included the poem with today’s prompt. I routinely think about the last line and while writing about the mystery nature can give us, it popped up again.

If you’re familiar with the poem, what does it mean to you?