There are a lot of things I love doing. I love travelling: it gives me a thrill to go to a place I have never been before and see how people live differently, fundamentally the same, but dissimilarly with their different food, language, laws and traditions… I almost get giddy as I walk through the streets of these unknown places discovering every little corner with awe, looking up at the windows above, imagining who lives there and what they are doing right now. I love gardening, spending hours with my hands in the earth, watching seeds grow and flowers blossom. I love watching people, sitting on a bridge in Florence and just quietly observing everybody go on their way. I love walking along the cliffs of the Atlantic Ocean watching the massive waves crash against the rocks. I love an evening in a pub, a good pint of Guinness and some trad music to lift the soul. I love an early morning safari when all your senses are peaked at their highest… the sky raw but welcoming you into its essence.
And I love lying in the bathtub, with Mozart in the background, reading poetry….
Reading poetry is like music for the soul, where your deepest thoughts are touched by the meticulous words of the poet. It is a connection through words to humanity. It’s pure emotion, either something we can relate to or something we feel we can. Through the feelings evoked we learn more about ourselves. Poems often address concepts of morality, existence, love and death through words and form which arouse emotion and, as readers, we can only attempt to delve deeper into our souls to see where these notions resonate and give us meaning. For me poetry unveils the different dimensions of what it means to be human, and that to experience these different layers is okay, because we are human.
Here is a lovely poem we all know:
"The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
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.
If nothing else, we are left with the impression that striving to make a difference is what counts. The poet wants to make a difference to this world, and so do I.