Mending Wall

One of my favorite poems is "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost.  In addition to loving the beauty of its natural rhythm, I can relate to the speaker's frustration at not being able to get his message through to his neighbor.  (There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pines, I tell him....He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'....I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall that wants it down.') 

His neighbor, living life on a more perfunctory and surface level than the speaker, cannot even begin to understand the futility of his actions (He moves in darkness as it seems to me~ Not of woods only and the shade of trees).  It is saddening to know what won't exist, because of the neighbor's inability, fear, disbelief or mindless, comfortable routine (He will not go behind his father's saying, and he likes having thought of it so well, he says again, "Good fences make good neighbors.")

It has been argued that people like him go through life just fine, not needing or wanting true intimacy, not creating much depth in their relationships, preferring to swim in the safe and calm, but shallow waters (We keep the wall between us as we go.)  Maybe so.

But I am not one of them.

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows?

But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me~

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

(Click to enlarge)