Occasionally when I am out walking with Lotte and I look ahead and just for a moment wonder what might lie around that bend. Is it something wonderful or something to be scared of?
And then I think of one of my favourite poems by Rudyard Kipling :
“They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods….
But there is no road through the woods. “
This was one of the poems that we learned at school and now some 55 years later, I can still recite it.
I do know that different interpretations of any poetry are possible. This poem talks to me of plans made and discarded in favour of new plans. We can decide to take the road through the woods or an alternative perhaps easier way, where the road is still clear and unhampered, or we can take this way strewn with brambles and humps aka problems and challenges. Some of us choose the easy way and enjoy life to a certain extent, never knowing how great it feels to overcome the challenges. And the rest of us…..
Well we know what it is to go out into the world without a safety net. Sure, it’s scary and not comfortable, but oh the joy when we accomplish what we had thought was impossible.
So today I am encouraging you (but only if you feel strong and secure enough of course) to ditch the safety net and meet life head on. Who know what you may find.
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself. ”
Soren Kierkegaard, 1813 –1855
Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and author.
And in no means meant as a postscript:
I should like to thank sincerely all 70 people who have subscribed to my blog and to the 14,000 plus visitors to this site. Thank you, thank you. I am honoured that you read my blogs and comment. In fact, blown away would more accurately describe my feelings for you all.
via Clipart
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