On second thought...

Let us examine this a little more closely. Perhaps Papy Biou’s photograph from yesterday’s post is not married to Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken,” which begins, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” after all. There are differences.

First of all, there is only one road in the photograph, not two roads. Second of all, the trees are green, not yellow. The season is obviously spring or summer, not autumn at all. But the flowers are yellow. Still, when I saw the photograph, my mind went immediately to Frost’s poem. But the season of the year, I think, is really immaterial.

I picture myself as the observer, standing at the very spot where the roads diverge. Two trails, two different destinations. One road, the route on my right, is not even part of the picture. When I turn my head, however, and look to my left, there is Papy’s road. The scene beckons to me. It is tantalizing. A variety of blues beyond the leaves hint of a calm lake, a rugged hill, a clear sky. I can see quite a distance down the road, all the way to the place where it bends in the undergrowth and continues on its way to a destination I will never know. Because I have chosen to take the other road, which is actually the less-traveled one, I may have missed something wonderful, something life-changing, something I may always be sorry I missed, if only I knew what it was. But I have made my choice. I turn to the right and take the other road with its own unique set of possibilities and destinations.

Life is like that. You can’t do it all. No one can. All you can do is make choices daily and hope for the best.