2005/spring

Spring morning
late March,
I hear hammers
in the background,
the large kind
that pound stakes
in the ground.
Perhaps someone
is getting a new
fence.
The birds speak
their minds,
it won’t bother
them.
The new neighbor
down the street
has put his fence
three feet from
the kitchen window.
A high fence,
dog-eared cedar.
The plain fence
most people use
here.
I like grape stake,
more labor intensive.
A lot more visual
interest,
a bit of
mystery somehow.
The neighbor’s new
has been extended
to fill every hole
and dip,
a safe fence
for a dog,
but I would feel
walled in when
I washed the
dishes.
It’s a homely house
salt-box flat on
the outside,
added-on and
stuck together.
A dreary grayish
blue.
Still I like to watch
the magic of new
ownership,
energy to effect
in days what
eluded the last
owners for years.
I’m sad to say
I am of that sort.
Eight years later
we’re no closer
to having a fence.
I want to be that
kind, the ones who
move in and quickly
fence.
And just as fast
buy another house
and move on.
It is a failure,
as analyzed
as all my others,
analysis which
has done nothing
to put up
a fence.

3/30/05