Sharing as much poetry as possible
Daily Share Post: May 25
What poems have you read and loved today? Have you written any? Please post in the comments or link to a top-level post in the comm!

What poems have you read and loved today? Have you written any? Please post in the comments or link to a top-level post in the comm!
Robert Frost is one of my favourite poets; I come back to his work again and again. One of his most famous poems, "The Road Not Taken," is, I believe, usually misread. Many people think the last line ("and that has made all the difference") is to be read straight, that Frost really meant it. But the rest of the poem doesn't support this. One year, for OctPoWriMo, I wrote a response to this poem, and I tried to clarify this a little. So, here is Frost's classic and my humble response.
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.
Around That Bend
by Esther Jones
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less-traveled by…”
Or so I say with a sigh, yet I
Remember the other was “just as fair,”
And really the grass was just as green,
The fallen leaves were no more black,
No footprints marréd either path.
I say, “It made all the difference,” yet
I cannot know where the other led.
Sometimes I lay upon my bed
And dream of what I might have met
If I had stepped around that bend.
Love your poem. Honestly, I always thought that's what it meant.
I think people who read a lot of poetry and really think about it understand the poem, but it's also very popular among more casual readers and they seem to misread it. I've seen it quoted on inspirational posters and suchlike.