Fences

Some to separate

Pasture from pasture in order

To clarify the prairie,

Others to surround the farm,

Keeping the world

Out and the herd in.

Between the barbs designed

To bloom at intervals

Measuring the span of a hand,

Redwing blackbirds scolded

Both nations of grass

The fence divided.

The posts that stood

Where they’d been driven

Knee-deep in limestone

Had begun to lean

Like men forced to march

Into the wind.

And where oak saplings

Had had the audacity to grow,

They’d had no choice

But to swallow the wire,

Remembering via rings

The anniversary of that first summer

They sensed the wire tapping

Their bodies, then began,

Tentatively, to accept it,

To take it in, feeling

The wire grow taut

In the grip of their bark,

Until they began to believe

They needed it

In order to stand.

 

by Austin Smith

Done