Brick Walls At Dusk Poem by Michael Pruchnicki

Just outside our compound nearTaejon
we built a red brick wall that curled
around and up the rockstrewn hill

Prying granite rocks out of the hard soil
was the first task we tackled with axes
and shovels and pry bars - the next
was digging and wrapping in burlap
trees that clung with roots that went
deep into the earth like tenacious lovers

The trenches that bordered it all
were designed to resist the wayward
natives from clambering over the red
brick wall that we built that spring!

I remember the day we withdrew
looking back in the dim light of dusk
at the red brick wall that encircled
our compound just outside Taejon,
populated now by wayward natives!