Ola, memories of all these poems and the memory of the first time I stumbled through the thick words and understood whatever I did at the time. I remember reading "Stopping on the Woods on the Snowy Evening" in school in Nepal. I did not understand much but I was enchanted by the vision of snow and a horse with harness bells - a totally new world to me. I have reread the poem many times since then and each time I have understood it in a different light. I once read an article on "Reader's Digest" written by an English instructor who taught the poem to his class of immigrants who are just learning English and the ways of America. Th author then recounts how when some years later he met one of his students from his class on a busy street in New York. The student had started to work and desperately trying to hold on to his American dream by hard work. As they parted the student said: "I have miles to go before I sleep!" That made the poem very personal to me. On my first semester English composition class I again read the poem. It spoke to me in a different tone than the simple amazement that I had felt before. It was a war song, a song of hope and freedom and the enduring testimony to human will. I too had miles to go before I slept. I too had promises to keep. Now I read it again and I am amazed by the beauty of the language. This is a manifestation of words as magic. That is the reason why I like poems better than songs (ala the pervasive "the reason" by hoobastank). You do not get fed up with poems. With poems you make your own music and when you change the poem changes, when you grow the poem grows with you. -------- mG.