June Nash

My poem, inspired by Robert Frost’s Good Fences make good neighbors (Mending Wall), and my own neighbor’s fence.

I bought a house upon the shore

Where neighbors dropped by door to door

Then one citizen grew a thorn

That was when the 1st fence was born

From front to back, as high as me

Beyond that point, no longer see

I thought his neighbor must be bad

To make this fence builder so mad

This was the house across the lake

Not a concern for me to take

Until a friend three houses down

Found fence posts popping from the ground

With sympathy I did listen

As her tears down cheeks did glisten

Beyond that fence I could not see

Until this scourge happened to me

I bought a house upon the shore

Where neighbors gathered door to door

No one seems to care except me

Of lost shoreline camaraderie