One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though, as you started,
all the things you needed
started to appear.
2. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
The little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
3. "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.
4. "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon
I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon. I am from the dirt
under the back porch. (Black, glistening
it tasted like pennies.)
I am from the forsythia bush
the Dutch elm, the catalpa tree.
I am from coffeecake,
from gingersnaps and hominy grits.
I am from the coal truck,
from the rope swing, from the
tractor shed. I am from the
woman who fell down the stairs,
from the man who lived in a well.
I am from stories that didn't get told,
or were whispered to me in the woods,
or in the darkness between
my mother and father's bed.
I am from the convertibles,
top-down
on the Fourth of July. I am from
fireworks and the smell
of gunpowder.
I am from the moon on the water,
from the lightning on the horizon.
I am from the middle of the night,
from the sound of my own breathing.
5. "This is Where I am" by Mary Oliver
I am lost and find myself
over and over. What else
is a life for?
The sun rises; the sun sets;
the moon follows behind her
in rags of light. Stars
burn in the black spaces
or go into hiding:
all that was once mine
returns and returns again
like the tide
going out and coming back
in, in, in.
This is where I am
and this is who I am.