because of the style…more prose poem…i would suggest dropping the cap at the beginning of each line…i will let the other crits tackle more…i am fascinated by the subject though as i love to explore in the woods…

thanks Brian, good point

As soon as I started reading this I had Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ in my head. It’s a favourite of mine and the similarities are startling.

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.

Not only are the premise and the words/diction very similar but also the meter. I’m not sure if it was your intention to write a piece based on Frost’s poem?

Hey UC

I m late getting round the dverse bar and i see you have had some feedback.

I like what you are doing here.
You love the outdoors (the narrator at least),and that comes through in buckets.
I felt the adventure and the boyhood drama of a trip which could become anything with the right amount of imagination.
As the poem progresses i began to sense something deeper bubbling underneath the surface. I m speculating here. But you got me thinking.

Cheers UC

Tom

Yes Tom there is a bit of undeveloped story line left purposely untold. It was a real challenge for me to end the story where I did becuse just like the trail, the story beckoned me onward. As a writer I felt the need to reveal more near the end however that was adverse to my orignal intent so I tried to leave it hanging.

I thinking now about writing a sequel. What do you think? Have you ever written a sequel poem?

Yes Carys this poem was a challenge I took upon myself to write a poem with the same basic meter and a similar premise. Two Roads is one of my favorite poems and it’s the poem I recall most from my earliest exploration of alternate rythym and rhyme schemes. As a songwriter for many years I found it very difficult to comply with the meter Two Roads to my memory and recite it in calls when I was in about the 5th ot 6th grade and it has stuck with me ever since. I thoroughly enjoy exploring a new trail that I have never been on and old loggin trails and such tend to lead me deeper into the woods and I find it very hard to turn back becuase something really interesting might lie just beyond the next turn. Could be some wild bird or animal, or it might be a secret cabin that has been abandoned years ago. I always find it fun to explore the woods.