The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost)

För många år sedan skickade min storasyster en dikt till mig. Jag plockar fram den med jämna mellanrum och tycker att den är lika bra varje gång jag läser den. “The Road Not Taken” skrevs av den amerikanska författaren Robert Frost (1874-1963) och publicerades 1915 i The Atlantic. Tänk att en dikt som skrevs för över ett sekel sedan fortfarande kan vara aktuell i allra högsta grad. Det spelar ingen roll om det gäller resor eller livsval i stort, för mig fungerar dikten som styrka och inspiration (och för all del tröst!) i alla möjliga och omöjliga sammanhang.

“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.”

– The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost.

Har du någon favoritdikt att dela med dig av? Omslagsbild, Båsenberga i Sörmland.