Yellow woods...

I can't help myself.  When I see yellow woods, I immediately think of Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken."  Frost used themes in nature to share great insights into human behavior, choices, and rituals.  I supposed I liked this piece from the time I was taught it, because I liked the idea that we sometimes stick to tough or unpopular or goal-oriented decisions, despite the uncertainty and entanglements that seem to await and challenge our progress.  But when we've taken "the road less traveled," it often makes "all the difference."  These paths, these experiences, were the very ones that helped expose latent talents... or untapped courage... or friendships you never expected.

It appears Frost wrote this poem in 1920...  getting very close to 100 years ago.  Just goes to show...  Truth has no age.

Limestone Road

Robert Frost (1874–1963).  Mountain Interval.  1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

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;	5
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,	10
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.	15
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.	20