Friday 28 June 2013

whose woods these are?

many years ago, before google became a verb, i kept my english teacher's copies of poems that i was expected to return. one of these was robert frost's stopping by woods on a snowy evening, which for some reason i memorised. and tonight, on a cold winter evening, after a day of smiling more than i felt like, of finding how the memory of delhi lives on my skin but i can't touch it, of feeling sore from people's words, of fear and exhaustion that my own mind can bring - those words came tumbling out. and with it the meaninglessness of a school-time guilt.


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.   

My 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.

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