Something there is that doesn't love a wall

-

 

“… 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 offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.”

 


Robert Frost’s iconic poem, “Mending Wall,” takes us into the New England countryside and two properties where two owners get together every spring to repair the stone fence between them. Had they livestock, the narrating owner conjectures, the adage, “Good fences make good neighbours,” would suit. But here, one has fruit trees and the other a pine orchard, so why keep the fence/wall?

Clearly, those who constructed the Berlin Wall had a good idea what it was they were “walling in or walling out.” Or attempting to. Visiting a family in East Berlin in 1988, we learned that the wall was much more than concrete, machine guns and guard dogs. Through the legal system, the wall cut through the school curricula, through personal freedoms of religion, movement, thought and speech.

But there’s no such thing as an impermeable wall, a fail-safe fence. Ideas, faith, relationships, longings—the human spirit, basically—will soar over, past or through the highest barrier. On November 9, 1989—a few months after we concluded our three-year term with MCC in Europe—ecstatic Germans were dancing on the wall, celebrating through the streets of West Berlin. (Not to imply that we take any credit for it.)

“Something there is that doesn't love a wall/That wants it down.”

Walls take many shapes and forms, of course. The accumulation of arms, the race to have more fire power than a possible enemy is an illusory protective wall, for instance. Propelled by our fear of physical harm and death, our imaginations soar ever closer to the brink where that which was meant to protect us becomes our greatest danger. A wall big and strong enough to exclude all threats becomes, in effect, a prison.

Simple answers only suffice for simple questions. Considering human rights, international law, inequality of resources, natural disaster, war, famine, etc., the migration of people is easily shown to be a complex issue requiring a multi-faceted response. But simplify the problem to, “Too many people are getting into the USA across the Mexican border,” and the answer, “We’ll build a wall,” can seem credible to many.

Frost’s poetry excels in illuminating ideas through the everyday. In “The Road not Taken,” for instance, the crossroad experience of deciding between the broad road or the narrow both repeats a Biblical theme while taking us through an imaginary walk in the woods.

The Poetry Foundation website finds me a frequent visitor. Do check Frost’s genius out at Mending Wall by Robert Frost | Poetry Foundation

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Democracy or bust

-
Image
  Politics . You can tell how people relate to this word by the way they use it. “I’m not much interested in politics,” for instance, equates it with the day-to-day news about our current government, elections, party dynamics, etc. A narrow definition.                By whatever word we use, it’s clear that the setting and enforcing of the principles under which we form community—and function as community—existed before the word was coined. In families, in schools, in workplaces, on the roads, in the economy, the making and respecting of agreed-to behavioural expectations in a community is the necessary defense against chaos.                How behavioural expectations come to be, how they are altered, how they are enforced … and most importantly by whose authority … is fundamental. The “benevolent dictator” model has a long history: give...
Read more

Do I dare eat a peach?

-
Image
  All the talk of Joe Biden’s unfitness for the position of president of the USA must have others of his age—80 plus—wondering about their own fitness. Most of us octogenarians are well aware of our physical limitations, I think, but mentally? How can I know, for instance, if the lines I’m writing are logically sound, or if they fall somewhere between inane and gibberish? How can I know if my diminished capacity can be trusted to make such a judgment? And what if my friends are too kind to tell me when to close my laptop? Hearing an aging loved one tell the same stories to the same people every day has the able-minded nodding knowingly and cluckingly (that’s a word, isn’t it?). We’re obviously too kind and too hip not to know that people experiencing obvious dementia deserve to be “handled with care,” and we’ve devised places and strategies to preserve for them whatever dignity is still possible. But it’s not dissimilar from the pain-relieving, ointment applying, chair-exercisin...
Read more

Stories We Live By

-
Image
  David Brooks, writer, philosopher and journalist, said in a recent speech to the Aspen Ideas gathering that the current divisive, belligerent mood among the people of earth can’t be attributed to our real-life situations. We have space, food, water, shelter, healthcare enough for everyone, and more. We don’t fight because we need to, he said, but because we carry stories in our heads to which we respond. It's clear that he doesn’t mean story in the same way I meant it when I published a collection of short stories , but there’s something to be gained in connecting the two, particularly when behaviour is guided by, for instance, The Holy Bible , or the Quran , each telling a story by which adherents understand life and by which their actions are governed. Scientists, as a rule, act according to a very different story of life, their exploration guided very much by the saga of evolving nature and the incontrovertible principles that govern all things. Our stories —I think Broo...
Read more