Lovely, Dark and Deep

I think of Robert Frost's poem differently now than I did when I was younger. Maybe that's a sign of a really good poem.

These are the woods that I walked in this morning, on the way to which I met the snarling dog featured in the previous post.  

It's easy to get lost in the woods.  The sensuous darkness can pull you in so deep that you could forget every promise you ever made and just keep on walking.

I used to read the lines, And miles to go before I sleep, as a lot of work to be done before the end of the day, or a lot of years left in a life that was a long uphill trudge.  I read something different now, and maybe it's nowhere close to what the poet intended, but now miles sounds to me like just a few miles.  Not far at all--a distance that should be savored in this life that's so lovely dark and deep.