Building Wall (After Robert Frost's Mending Wall) Poem by claude solnik

Building Wall
• (After Robert Frost's Mending Wall)
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•Someone there is who truly loves a wall
•That separates the sky from the earth under it
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•And rises boldly and blocks the mid-day sun
•And divides north from south and east from west.
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•The work of legislators is a messy thing.
•Society is in constant need of immediate repair.
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•But a wall is simple and obedient as a piece of stone.
•The wall's shadows leave no space for hiding.
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•The stones barely leave room for air between.
•But it is real and strong as anything man has made.
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•Walls stand as monuments to those who leave them there.
•While politicians argue endlessly on the hill,
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•A wall is a dream worthy of a builder's mind.
•It will divide us as we should be once again.
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•The wall will be the only thing we know
•Thanks to shoulders that rise to build and reach
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•To build a wall that shall never fail or fall.
•There are no spells and yet a strange balance
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•Comes from a wall forever as still as the earth turns.
•We can hold stones and enjoy handling them
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•And build a wall as if we play a game.
•And to those who say, they want a door,
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•I say, 'A wall is the most beautiful thing of all.'
•If God had built a wall around his orchard,
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•No snake would have slithered across the grass,
•So anyone who doubts a wall, I tell him,
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•'Remember good walls are better than good neighbors.'
•Winter may throw snow at it like thunder,
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•But a wall as beautiful as a bed
•Lies down as if the world's at rest, isn't it?
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•Crows can fly over it, but there are no crows.
•When I build a wall, I always know
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•Who I am walling in and walling out
•Whether it be a true wall or a flimsy fence,
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•Someone there is who truly loves a wall.
•That knows it is the illusion of a good defense.
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•The Democrats may protest, though I'd rather
•Put them on the other side, if I could dare.
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•And wall out people whose ideas I'd like to stop.
•But a wall I build is something that won't be harmed.
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•It will stand for centuries, a monument to me.
•Longer than words carved in the skin of trees.
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•It will last longer than a rally or a speech.
•I am someone who truly loves to build a wall.
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•Because there is no such thing as a good neighbor anymore.