The Waiting Room

The Waiting Room

On the walls of hospital waiting rooms hang
Posters of woods wearing their autumn colors.
The vantage point is always from a path
Just before it branches in two directions.
And at your feet, so you can’t help but read them,
You find Frost’s famous lines: Two roads diverged…
Such posters are meant to make you think
Of how you might take the road less traveled
From now on, which is always, of course, the road
You haven’t been taking, since, if you were
Taking it, it would be the road more traveled,
Not the road less, and you'd do well to stay on it.
But any literary critic will tell you that 
That wasn’t what the old man meant. 
Later he says quite clearly that both were worn
About the same, meaning that, looking back, 
The teeth grinding choices didn’t matter, 
Since all roads lead here, to this place, 
Which is death, which is, depending on how
You want to think about it, a meadow
Or a clearing where the trees were cut down 
For a reason no one can remember.
Probably somebody ran out of money.
Didn’t matter like it doesn’t matter 
Which sleeve you chose to put your arm through
First this morning. Both got to wear the coat,
Didn’t they? The future appears to us 
As an infinite series of herringbone paths
That, looking back, have resolved themselves 
Into the spine of this single lane, paved 
With small white stones the size of the grains
Of sand the sea chews its own shells into. 
See how the trees have healed over
All the ones you didn’t take as soon as 
You didn’t take them? They disappeared like
They were never there in the first place.
The lane you’re standing at the end of?
It's your life. You’ve come to the meadow 
Or the clearing, depending. It’s time to 
Turn around. Someone is calling your name.