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]