Mending Wall.
It was the night of November 9, 1989. As their yellow Wartburg advanced unimpeded into what had always been an off limits security zone, a German Pastor and dissident rolled down the window and asked a border guard “Am I dreaming or is this reality?”
“You are dreaming” the guard replied.
An unbelievable dream, but it was true, a dream come true. And they drove through The Wall into the west as thousands, perhaps millions followed them. The Cold War, an outcome of World War II had probably come to an end at last as over the next few days and by November 11, the crowds and machinery began to tear down the Berlin Wall that had been such a potent symbol of evil regimes where countless people had lost their humanity and their lives.
I wasn’t born until ten years after the end of World War II, but it’s legacy still hung heavily in many ways over the world in which this young life lived. The wounds and scars were still raw and evident. But during my life, I also witnessed great events and tragedies. I remember the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the moon landing of 1969, I remember photos of human torches being burned up by napalm, the triumph over Apartheid and the appalling November 11 terrorist attacks. The highs and lows of humanity. And I remember a news item on TV, almost unheard of I thought as I saw boatloads of people from the west and Russia attacking the northern ice, freeing trapped whales, working together to save in triumph another species. The news story was backed by John Lennon’s “Imagine”. Imagine! Imagine, soon after, I watched as waves of happy people, fleeing freely from repressed regimes of Communism moved as one....crying, hugging, kissing, hoping. And I cried and hoped too!
The photo - on the left, sands from Omaha Beach, Normandy, France from D Day, June 6, 1944 where many fought and died to restore peace to a shattered world; on the right two small pieces of concrete with painted graffiti from the West German side of the Berlin Wall and in the middle, some rich red soil from the very peaceful heart of our ancient and beautiful Australia where we can still contemplate the Dreamtime.
And 30 years after, on 9 November 2019 and still hoping I guess, I reflected on a poem called Mending Wall by Robert Frost, learnt and studied by a fairly uncomprehending mind in primary school, but some of it stuck. And it stands as a tribute to those who fought for that change, who continue, against heavy odds, to fight to prevent walls of hate and hopelessness even today. You can read about its meaning through the link at the bottom.
Mending Wall by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Mending Wall.
It was the night of November 9, 1989. As their yellow Wartburg advanced unimpeded into what had always been an off limits security zone, a German Pastor and dissident rolled down the window and asked a border guard “Am I dreaming or is this reality?”
“You are dreaming” the guard replied.
An unbelievable dream, but it was true, a dream come true. And they drove through The Wall into the west as thousands, perhaps millions followed them. The Cold War, an outcome of World War II had probably come to an end at last as over the next few days and by November 11, the crowds and machinery began to tear down the Berlin Wall that had been such a potent symbol of evil regimes where countless people had lost their humanity and their lives.
I wasn’t born until ten years after the end of World War II, but it’s legacy still hung heavily in many ways over the world in which this young life lived. The wounds and scars were still raw and evident. But during my life, I also witnessed great events and tragedies. I remember the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the moon landing of 1969, I remember photos of human torches being burned up by napalm, the triumph over Apartheid and the appalling November 11 terrorist attacks. The highs and lows of humanity. And I remember a news item on TV, almost unheard of I thought as I saw boatloads of people from the west and Russia attacking the northern ice, freeing trapped whales, working together to save in triumph another species. The news story was backed by John Lennon’s “Imagine”. Imagine! Imagine, soon after, I watched as waves of happy people, fleeing freely from repressed regimes of Communism moved as one....crying, hugging, kissing, hoping. And I cried and hoped too!
The photo - on the left, sands from Omaha Beach, Normandy, France from D Day, June 6, 1944 where many fought and died to restore peace to a shattered world; on the right two small pieces of concrete with painted graffiti from the West German side of the Berlin Wall and in the middle, some rich red soil from the very peaceful heart of our ancient and beautiful Australia where we can still contemplate the Dreamtime.
And 30 years after, on 9 November 2019 and still hoping I guess, I reflected on a poem called Mending Wall by Robert Frost, learnt and studied by a fairly uncomprehending mind in primary school, but some of it stuck. And it stands as a tribute to those who fought for that change, who continue, against heavy odds, to fight to prevent walls of hate and hopelessness even today. You can read about its meaning through the link at the bottom.
Mending Wall by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’