A C H A P E L TA L K
by Sophia Deng ’22 March 1, 2021
The Warmth and Chill of Yellow Wood Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both.
The Road Not Taken BY ROBERT 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.
26
Groton School Quarterly
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Spring 2022
A
t my middle school in China, I came across a song adapted from the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, which I learned for an English project. On numerous afternoons after school, I sat in the hallway outside of my classroom as rays of sunshine from the windows dotted golden marks on my wrinkly notebook. English was foreign to me then: each word was made up of letters with round edges–completely different from squares of Chinese characters with distinct strokes. The melody of the song played over and over again in the white earbuds hanging down between strands of my hair. I tried to portray an image of the poem as my English teacher told me to, but the meaning only landed like a layer of dust on the surface of glass–just two little paths sneaking into a yellow wood. Why the yellow wood? I didn’t know nor care. I already struggled to memorize the pronunciation of jumbled words, not to mention decode the obscure meaning of the poem. At a certain point, I looked out from the windows of that hallway. It was fall at the time; yellow woods were everywhere. Golden leaves of poplar trees peeked in and whispered to each other in the rustling wind, mischievously casting sporadic shadows in the sunlit hallway. Through rays of light, only the tiny particles floating in the air hinted at the flow of time. I closed my eyes to feel the warmth of the sun through my eyelids. The yellow wood was the golden color, the warmth, and the wrinkle sound of flipping through the notebook. The time of middle school passed like the fleeting light of that afternoon. In the next snippet of my memory, I was already on my way to the airport. The chill of a winter morning settling in the car stiffened the tips of my fingers. The low humming of the engine occupied the tiny space. Outside the car window, the sky was only dimly lit at this time in the wintry morning. I watched the woods on
