Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Robert Frost said that. The poem? "Mending Wall." I've always loved that poem, since I first stumbled across it in my first or second year of college. I could tell you by pulling the book down from the shelf, because I used to date my books ... though that would require me to turn on the light. I look at the shelves in the half-light of the computer and realize, horror of horrors, that I have lived in one place for two full years and not alphabetized my poetry. Unbelievable!

Can't find Frost. Dickenson. Homer. Eliot. Yes, in that order, reading backwards, up the shelves. Oh here it is. Before the Eliot. On the flyleaf, with my childish signature. February 4, 1982. Not a surprise. The formative semester of my sophomore year, when I began to read for myself. So then. Mending Wall. Let's see.

I think it starts, "Something there is that loves a wall ..."

But no, in fact, surprise! It starts,

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.

I love walls. I am not as fond of fences, but this one, like most of Pugsley, is right. It's meant. Someone has found it useful and it's stood the test of time because it serves a purpose, and when it was down this past six months, something was not right in the yard. So, well, now it is back up. Here were the final few shovel fulls of dirt, tamped down around the last post, which I caught from the kitchen window last weekend.

I have photos of the other side, the pretty side. Capel put the caps on and re-stained it today. But they will save for another day. Good night all.