The Fence

The Fence is a poem I wrote in 2020. It’s about a fence (surprise, surprise) and the property behind it that I passed while walking to high school. It’s funny how mundane things imprint on our psyches. I can’t account for it except that it’s one way everything can point to ultimate meaning. Plato said particular things suggest the reality of those things. So if I see a horse, it hints at what a horse truly is. Maybe things in this reality hint at something that is more deep and full, like the early reflections, the pre-echos, of a coming sound. Anyway, I hope readers enjoy The Fence. It first appeared in my book The Wind and the Shadows.

The Fence

My route to school
took me past a fence:
tall, knotted boards
flecked with moss,
crowded together
like old growth forest.

Fir trees just behind the fence
completed the appearance
of woods
and crossed their limbs
against anyone
looking in
or out.

Beyond the trees,
a rooster gargled; 
clucking popcorned;
cows groaned;
a donkey had a fit
of braying.

A farm
in the middle of the suburbs....

Who knows how long 
the farm was there
before houses metastasized

before it buried its face
in a row of gnarled, 
wooden fingers.