Poetry Friday - Fun with words

Okay, you've been warned that I'm not a poet. So today I am sharing, unabashedly, two of my favorite poems.

The first was in a picture-book poetry anthology I loved to shreds as a child - one of those cheap books our moms bought at the grocery store so we'd be quiet.

Eletelephony~Laura E. Richards(1850-1943)

Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant-
No! no! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone-

(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I’ve got it right.)

Howe’er it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk:
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee-

(I fear I’d better drop the song
Of elephop and telephong!)

This bit of silliness is etched in my brain from constant repetition, but oh how I do love words!

Another favorite is equally trite but a bit more grown-up: almost any Frost is going to resonate with a New Hampshire girl, but this one is so potent and poignant.

The Road Not Taken ~ Robert Frost (1874-1963)

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 marked 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.

I have the faintest memory of watching him read aloud, on tv. Magnificent.

--Sally

Note: This week's Poetry Friday Round-Up is being held at Biblio File.