Today's prompts from Robert Lee Brewer and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "what will the future bring" poem (think about a possible future outcome, either general or personal, and make that the title of the poem, and (2) read Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" and reflect on choices you made or might have made and how they changed, or might have changed, your life. So here are two apparently conflicting prompts that actually can work pretty well together, and seem to lead one to contemplate both past and future. For example:
Up to Fifty
Unlike Frost, I see divergent paths
as branches, not as roads. Sometimes I think
of how this life would be if I had climbed
a different limb, perhaps the one that took
me to another school, a college in
the South, where I would never meet the girl
who's now my wife. So many choices followed,
as I clambered up and up, and yet she
stayed beside, as we helped each other reach
these heights. Looking down, I realize there's
more past below than future left to climb.
Eventually, I'll lose my grip and fall
to earth, a castoff autumn leaf, or reach
a branch that's just not strong enough. But I've
still got work to do, to shimmy up
this seven-decade oak, and she with me,
up toward that golden anniversary,
and then we'll sit and marvel at the view.
as branches, not as roads. Sometimes I think
of how this life would be if I had climbed
a different limb, perhaps the one that took
me to another school, a college in
the South, where I would never meet the girl
who's now my wife. So many choices followed,
as I clambered up and up, and yet she
stayed beside, as we helped each other reach
these heights. Looking down, I realize there's
more past below than future left to climb.
Eventually, I'll lose my grip and fall
to earth, a castoff autumn leaf, or reach
a branch that's just not strong enough. But I've
still got work to do, to shimmy up
this seven-decade oak, and she with me,
up toward that golden anniversary,
and then we'll sit and marvel at the view.
2 comments:
Paths do branch, but you've used a tree as a metaphor, and quite effectively.
This is a great way to look at it. It's worth it for the view. Happy anniversary when you get there.
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