This is a picture I took at the Huntington Library last week. At first I was not sure if I liked it. But when I was told that the image evoked impressions from one of my favorite poems, I was sold on it.

Here is the poem by Robert Frost, first published in 1916 in the collection Mountain Inverval. (More information can be found here.)

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The Road Not Taken

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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Reinhard Kargl

Journalist and media professional currently based in Los Angeles, California. Focusing on science and technology.