Poetry: The beautiful stepchild

Set Your Timer:  Choose a poem and pick one line.  For 15 minutes, build a scene around that line.

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.

Let me first start by saying I'm absolutely, positively, no-way no-how a poet.  I used to be able to pen some ideas down, but I would consider those to be more like limricks than poetry.  I always enjoyed the rhythm of the words and choosing the words to rhyme, but serious stuff was not for me.  So this exercise makes me a little nervous, but here we go anyways.

I shall be telling this with a sigh, he wrote at the top of the page.  He had been home for two weeks and there was nothing left in him.  Everything he was and used to be, was left on the front lines and in the faces of all those innocent families.  His family had warned him, 'War will change you, and you don't have to do this,' but he never listened.  He simply felt a calling to serve.  

He continued to write, I do not know how to belong in this life any longer.  I have made my mind up to leave you so you can move forward with your lives.  If I am still here, you would not be able to do that.  Too much has been done, too many things said that cannot be taken back.  It may not seem like it, but you will be better off without me.  

To my Livvy, you have been my North Star for as long as I can remember.  I know I am letting you down and the dreams will die with me.  But I want you to understand that I never would have made it through the past 3 years if it weren't for you.  Every letter, package, and email had been a life preserver for me to cling to.  It's what gave me hope in a hopeless situation.  

And to everyone else, I am sorry.  Sorry for the choices I've made, for the road I chose.  It was a long and sometimes painful one, and had I one wish, I would go back and take the other one.  

I am not expecting understanding, only acceptance.  I hope in time you will be able to do that.  

Until we meet again...

Charles