Despondent, I sought sheltering wood.
Flora and fauna, I yearned for both.
Hours I spent there, and then I stood,
Shaking off my woes as best I could,
When slight movement stirred in undergrowth.
Amid velvet ferns and cover fair,
A robin, in misery, lay claim
To plastic around leg he did wear.
No idea how long he suffered there,
I felt his agony, just the same.
My own bereft heart surged as bird lay
Tangled - plaintive searching eyes, coal black.
No grief had prepared me for this day,
But I knew I had to find a way
To restore flight to pained songster back.
Gentle tugs, anxious chirps, prayerful sigh...
Free, he hopped, then took flight … In days hence,
I have again sought that place, and I --
I have heard my rescued soul close by.
At last, I have made a difference.
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Author Notes
As per the contest's requirements, the above poem employs the end rhymes of Robert Frost's, "The Road Not Taken" to create a new poem.
"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost (1874 -1963):
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.
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