Fences

12.28.07

FENCES

White picket
Barbed wire
Stone hewn
Chain link
Electric

They protect our space, delineate our domain,

Keep demons out, and animals in.

We build them by hand, stake by stake,

Or unfurl wire lace carpets to lie sideways to the sky,

Dig post holes and sink tar treated beams.

They brace against the wind,

Trap papers and tossed balls,

While birds sit astride and a small cat passes through.

Fences wind around a house, a landscape, a country, a prison

Some insurmountable, others rickety and fallible,

But each one has a gate, a latch,

Inviting entry or exit.

And we pass, or not, as the full moon rises.