My mind is coursing over veins and arteries as if they were a road map. I'm tracing where I know they should be on my legs, on my arms, gliding through my organs. I imagine the muscles flexing and lengthening as they move beneath my skin. Suddenly the body seems so simplified, a map on my dashboard full of familiar road names and landmarks. With each road name a flash of its beginning and end and all the in between. Then suddenly, there is an unnamed road, an unfamiliar pathway, a name with no connection to where it belongs. Where does it fit into this puzzle? I’m lost again. Surely these terms were made up by a child. Endless words, and each one stranger than the next. But in this class it’s impossible to discard answer choices based on unfamiliarity. “There is no way that is the correct answer. I’ve studied for hours and I’ve never come across that word.” Famous. Last. Words. Anatomy is not for the faint of heart. Tonight I will sleep and dream in latin and dissected body parts with blurry unreadable labels, my gloved hands tugging at nerves and separating muscles when they’d rather be plucking the strings of my guitar or chiming knitting needles together in steady rhythm. My eyes are as tired as my aching mind. When will I be able to sleep again without guilt weighing down my blankets at night? There is much to beckon into my mind and little time to convince it to stay. I’m trying hard to keep on keeping on, to fight the good fight. Robert Frost keeps wandering into the forefront of my mind. In the midst of the fray, the whisper of a melody I used to know, his poem set to melancholy notes, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” True, Robert. So very true.
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
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