POEMS/ Counter-factuals; or what it would have been like if Frost had not taken the road less traveled by

Counter-factuals;
or what it would have been like 
if Frost had not taken the road less traveled by  

At the end of the road not taken 
lies a well-built wall that never falls 
to elves, but there are no good neighbors, 
a wall that’s shaded by unbending birches 
that boys can never swing on, 
no thrush song in a woods that’s full of sun, 
a housekeeper who never has to sew, 
and there’s an Oven Bird who teaches 
of a world that’s undiminished, 
a spider web, that by design, 
cannot appall, and cannot catch 
a moth, a buzz-saw far too dull 
to slice a hand, a brook that runs from East to West 
beside a farm where children never 
lie in little graveyards built of stone 
and husbands always understand 
our grief, a hired man who does not 
come to die, a woods of snow 
where a man and a horse go home to sleep, 
no miles and miles to go, or promises to keep, 
an orchard where the picking never stops 
and pickers never tire, a world where there’s a poet 
who cannot form directives or provide, 
and lines and lines of poetry that never come to be. 


From The Still Puddle Poets: New Poems, 2008


 

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