Fenceline Neighbors

illustration by Nina Judson Crespo

Fenceline Neighbors by George N Wallace

There should be fences and walls between us all

So we'd have to fix them together

Shoulder to shoulder, setting posts, stretching wire

Choosing, lifting and placing stones - together.

Of fenceline neighbors, all such things required

Side by side, crossing back and forth

Between you place and mine

Both of us working the bar, circling the line

To tamp loose dirt in four inch lifts

Fixing what's ours together.

If on poor ground with plenty of rock

Finding those, be they yours or mine, having 

Faces and sides that best fit to mend our wall.

And since the work is side by side it frees us up,

Loosens our talk about the tasks before us - and before us all.

If fence it is, we must know together and together decide

Which line is true which posts to use, how deeply set,

On which side to put the wire, which animals must we contain

And which do we let pass over, under and through.

Then how high, how low, how far apart,

Which strands smooth and which strands sharp.

Partisan to be sure your part and mine, but in all of this,

Listening to the land itself and the history of each brief tenure,

Knowing the work we've both done in days past and now together

Can guide our talk, our choices, our plan to make things last,

All seasoned with news of family, local doins' and the weather.

And when we are done, we sort our tools - some that are yours 

Were used by me, some that are mine by you - each bringing things

That wee useful.  We stand back to look at our work.  To see it

We must stand in an open gate. On this side is still my place

And on that one yours but between us now, 

A fence that's friendly, sturdy, and straight.