The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken

She was eager to talk with us,

Hurrying up from her garden chores,

Pleased that we should take a picture

Of her thatched home: Old Fields House,

Where Edward Thomas stayed before the ‘War;

She pointed out Robert Frost’s house: Little Iddens,

And showed us a path there in the field on the right,

Where the water table looked as high as Flanders’ fields’.

She said the path would be better defined

When the crops grew taller:

It passed the oak tree on the rise.

But we took the road more travelled,

And that made all the difference,

For we met the literary lady from Ledbury:

‘Are you Frost and Thomas too?’

But if we had crossed that field,

We would have walked a ghost-road,

And trudged through muddied layers of time,

When all roads led to France.