Poems

[Snow Walker]

What are some of your favorite poems related to the outdoors/survival?

This is one of my favorites.


When the last deer disappears into the morning mist,
When the last elk vanishes from the hills,
When the last buffalo falls from the plains,
I will hunt mice, for I am a hunter and I must have my freedom.

Chief Joseph
Nez Perce Tribe

[slowz1k]

The timing on some posts is just weird sometimes.
I read this post yesterday, not thinking much of it. I enjoy some poetry but have minimal exposure to it.
Last night, while sitting out on the back deck with my wife, my daughter comes out to join us. She had a question about her homework assignment which happened to be a few questions on Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken". I hadn't read it in decades. I'm sure that this poem could relate to just about any life choice, but I kind of like to apply it to the mindset that most of us here have adopted and live by. After all... What we're doing today, will make all the difference.

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920

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.

[Snow Walker]

Road less traveled

The timing on some posts is just weird sometimes.
I read this post yesterday, not thinking much of it. I enjoy some poetry but have minimal exposure to it.
Last night, while sitting out on the back deck with my wife, my daughter comes out to join us. She had a question about her homework assignment which happened to be a few questions on Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken". I hadn't read it in decades. I'm sure that this poem could relate to just about any life choice, but I kind of like to apply it to the mindset that most of us here have adopted and live by. After all... What we're doing today, will make all the difference.

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920

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.

I'm not much of a poem person myself, but I have heard that one and like it. The road less traveled is always better!

[J40SW]

I don't really read poetry but, I enjoyed both of these poems. Thanks for the post.