Only Time Will Tell

It is graduation weekend for many schools. I wonder how many speeches will quote Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”? You know the lines:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

These lines have been posturized, quoted, and even used in commercials to express the idea that choosing a different path will change your life.

I am also going to quote this poem in my post, but an entirely different section for the same idea. You might just see the above quote in a new light.

As I have taught this poem over the years I have come to believe the heart of this poem is about choosing a path for the day, but like many of Frost’s poems there is a quiet depth in his lines. I think his deepest statement comes in the first stanza.

It is easy to make decisions when or if we can see it clearly, but that doesn’t happen very often in life, and Frost knew this. “…as far as I could / to where it bent…” Life is not a straight line, we are only allowed to see so far ahead in our lives. We can plan. We can dream. But tomorrow is the bend in the path. We have to make our decisions without knowing what lies beyond that bend. That takes faith. That takes courage.

No matter what you choose, as Frost said, you will be “telling this with a sigh.” What type of sigh? Only tomorrow knows.