telephone pole fence at Couchwood - PL
I'M WITH THE NEIGHBOR
I'm on the neighbor's side in "Mending Wall."
He needs to show the bound'ries of his place
to let the other know how soon a pall
can fall when acreage lines are breached. A case
in point--from my perspective: privet grew
on my place undeterred. The neighbor pled
with me to let her cut the brush. I knew
that Queen Ann's Lace live there and shook my head.
Her partner didn't get the word and cleared
my hedge and vegetation fence. Was I
enraged! I promptly stomped net door and leered.
I yelled, "That barrier of hedge was my
attempt to stop encroachments. From now on ..."
But back to Frost. The older neighbor stacked
his rocks and listened, unimpressed. A yawn
perhaps, a step, then his reply, which lacked
a change of heart. "Good fences make good neigh ..."
Our poet shows the man still strong enough
to lift two stones at once. Unswayed, we'd say,
by logic of the orchard man, he rubbed
rough, calloused hands together, knowing well
his father's reasons for a wall. His plan:
no change. Not now. Not ever. He can't tell
the man to keep his distance. Fences can.
~~
[PL, Honorable Mention, Lucidity Retreat, 2012,
published in April in the Ozarks, 2012]
