The Road More Traveled

 

The Road More Traveled

Many of us were forced to read Robert Frost’s iconic poem “The Road Not Taken” during our school days. This poem was presented to test the children’s intelligence and determine if they could understand any type of literature that did not include the phrase, Green Eggs and Ham.

The young students struggled to absorb the message in the rhyme, as many of the words didn’t rhyme at all. When the students were surveyed after this English class, they secretly declared they would not read this poem again, not with a fox, not in a box.

In this world of instant information and one word texting, I suspect classes no longer have the time, to read a long winded, four-verse poems anymore, unless the poet ends every verse rhyming “Bloody hell” with “LOL”. The gist of Robert Frost’s offering can be summed up with the first and last verse.

Two roads diverged in yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both.

 

I took the one less travelled.

And that made all the difference.

Well Mr. Frost, this sentiment is all fine and dandy but your words from that long lost dirt road world, failed to anticipate a different issue road travelers face today…

 

The Road More Traveled

 

Two roads diverged, which road to choose?  As I sit in my car.

The traffic’s brutal I’m driving home, though home now seems so far.

 

Each ride home I make a choice, hoping to arrive.

Cars and trucks, those stupid, f##%cks, they don’t know how to drive.

 

Highway one or highway two, each night I must choose.

So it begins, where no one wins, can everybody lose?

 

Where are all theses people going, they sure don’t seem to know.

They drive like nerds, flipping birds, its always stop and go.

 

My daily road rage always happens just past 6 o’clock.

Merge, don’t let that bastard in, look up is that a hawk?

 

Toll road options should improve my drive home just because,

I’m so smart I’ll pay for speed, but everybody does.

 

Bumpers here, and bumpers there, I read their license plates.

Snails crawl past, a tortoise too as everybody waits.

 

So many cars, so little room, we all know this of course,

Tomorrow I will sell my car, and buy a friggin horse.

 

And If I buy a horse, I guess I’ll have to buy a saddle.

Quit my job, get a farm, and raise some sheep and cattle.

 

But all the farmlands’ disappeared, replaced with condos now.

They tell you traffic’s manageable, they never show you how.

 

We listen to news radio, to find a faster road.

Standing still, our GPS can’t figure out the code.

 

A train, a bus, a carpool are the ways we could reduce

As we choose to drive alone, while mumbling, “Hey, What’s the use?”

 

Some will claim our daily drive pollutes our precious air.

Causing global warming, the busy roads don’t care.

 

I had a dream that one day all this traffic would get lighter.

Then I woke up, stared at the wheel, my knuckles getting whiter.

 

Still we purchase pricey cars, cause comfort’s now the goal.

We’re never moving fast enough to use the cruise control.

 

Seems every driver’s angry, with constant pent up rage

Some are only young ones and some are twice my age.

 

No driver chooses happiness, chooses frustration instead.

Sitting there like zombies, we’re now The Driving Dead.

 

We use our hands free mobile phones to chat with all our friends.

To bitch about our driving woes, the bitching never ends.

 

Brake lights brighten up the road, an endless sea of red.

The middle lane falls far behind, yet no one gets ahead.

 

We’re told we shouldn’t text and drive, as we slowly crawl.

But it is fine to text away, when not moving at all.

 

Hit the gas, hit the brakes, we get our exercise.

The car ahead gives you his lane, that’s always a surprise.

 

Every driver feels they’re the ones, with all the racing skill

They really think they’ll beat the traffic, but no one ever will.

 

I chose the road most traveled, adding 2 hours to my drive.

It made no difference in the end, though I made it home alive.

 

Apologies to Robert Frost if this reworking of your poem leaves you a little cold, or is that frosty?  Perhaps I should have just redone the ending to Frosty the Snowman, where the hero doesn’t melt, but just perspires a bit. Traumatizing young children with tragic endings, sets them up nicely for their adulthood, where they are finally mature enough to understanding the irony of the term “rush hour.”

 

Cue the Blong, you’ve heard this little  ditty before but not while you were driving.