Stephen Robertson

Slanting Lines

Yellow wood

With his four dromedaries

Don Pedro Alfaroubeiro

Roamed the world and marvelled.

He did what I would like to do

if I had four dromedaries.

                                          Guillaume Apollinaire, The Bestiary

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.

                                          Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

I can see, on his roamings, Don Pedro

reaching a fork in the road

and pondering, while his quattro

of camels nibble at the hedgerow,

yellow, in the yellow wood.

But how does he ever get

a decision agreed by all?

How can he persuade the quartet

on which brave new course to set

to let them proceed at all?