Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

          

   My dad shared this poem with my family earlier this month. He said that some critics suggest it is about suicide, or misery. My dad suggested that it is quite the opposite. 
   He said, "We do hard things, go to school and go some more.  We’re willing to move away into the unknown because it’s the right thing to do. We’ll read and pray and work and endure because it’s what we've been taught and it feels right when we do right. We press on though frozen in the darkness because we have promises to keep and do so with the faith that the days get longer from here. That is what this poem is about."
   I think we all need a little more hope after the holidays die down and life - the average parts of life, resume. It is cold, and sometimes so hard but we press on because that is who we are. We are promise keepers. 


"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
                            - Robert Frost


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