two roads

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

...Robert Frost

There's more and it's one of the first poems I ever memorized, mostly because my mother loved it and passed that love along to me. I suppose most people look back on their lives at various points and think about those roads not taken. It does make you wonder, doesn't it?

She also loved autumn, as do I, and every year around this time, I get nostalgic for the autumns of my childhood. Long hikes in the woods with my cousin and a dog or two, hot chocolate made with milk and Hershey's cocoa, kicking leaves in the gutter walking home from school.

I saw the background picture of the autumn woods when looking thru a magazine for a turkey. An hour later, the turkey was long forgotten and this was finished. Tough to get a good pic with the reflection from the glass. On the left is another woods image, sideways so that the trunks echo the horizontal lines of the words, layered over a thin strip of brown polka dot paper. 

On the right, I used the packing tape transfer method for the words - works like a charm, who knew? Beneath them is several torn layers of the Starbucks bag that my scone came in a couple weeks ago. I crumpled it, lightly rubbed a brown ink pad over it, then darkened the edges a bit.

the road not taken