quintain & triphthong

Watching me stand in the street and wave forlornly as the car drove away, her waving back at me, my mother once observed to Linda, “She’ll always be his baby, won’t she.”

She’ll be here today, the four arriving late morning for my birthday weekend. Some so flood life with happiness and love that as from some point in life’s way every road taken is because they might not be down the other. Even cars chosen over the years, this one for safety vice that one for speed and excitement. The Olds instead of the Cadillac. One can wax total sap about these things, but Robert Frost said it best, so his poem below again instead of my sentimental nonsense.

What might happen if my wish were “to start over” and I blew out all the candles? Well, it’s my birthday, I can dream. It might be a room full of tiny girls clamoring “Pick-a-me-up, Daddy.” Or I might go out to the garage and ride to the moon in that yellow 1951 Cadillac that was on the lot when I was at Bay High. There have been others since, but that was the first car I ever really lusted after. It no longer exists except in my dreams.

Anyway, here’s 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.

Only I know me, my basic Being, who I was, and am. But then, it’s that way with each of us, isn't it. ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω.

Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” 1920. Spring 1954 was it, or Fall 1953, I sat in an auditorium and heard the great man himself read it to us. Maybe if I blow out all the candles I will be in that auditorium again for that hour.