Poems to Live By

I have always been into poetry, whether it was writing my own or reading other peoples' published works.  I definitely have my favorite poets (Plath, Silverstein, Atwood, Frost, Dickinson, Emerson, Poe, Whitman, and Alice Walker to name a few) that I always have around and go back to quite frequently, but I really do enjoy finding new poets to add to my bookshelf. I have been doing a lot of that on my recent travels.  I picked up a book by a local San Juan poet while in Puerto Rico, whom I really enjoyed.  I also bought a collection of poems by contemporary Bahraini poets.  Very intriguing and beautiful.  The reason I bring this up is the new title of my blog was inspired by one of my favorite poems, The Odyssey.  I have read this poem several times and thought that the word Odyssey would be such a great description for the purpose of this blog. This is our journey and we will (and have) come across many obstacles.  Obviously, ours will not be as outrageous as those of Odysseus.  We will not be escaping from goddesses or making a trip to Hades, but it is very exciting for us and as crazy as we need it to be! In the very near future there will be some changes in our household, amazing changes!   I am so estatic about what that means for our journey...and the roads it will take us on.

Two of my all-time favorite poems are below.  They have both inspired me on more occasions than I can count.

The first one is an excerpt of Constantine Cavafy's poem "Ithaca" as seen in Thomas Cahill's book Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Still Matter.  A book I highly recommend!

Hope the way is long.
May there be many summer mornings when,
With what pleasure, with what joy,
You shall enter first-seen harbors...
Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
Arriving there is what has been ordained for you.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it last many years;
And you dock an old man on the island,
Rich with all that you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to give you wealth.

Ithaca gave you the beautiful journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing more to give you.

My other favorite poem which has been a favorite for a lot longer than the above one and is probably due credit for getting me into poetry is Robert Frost's poem "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.