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