Mending Wall
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 offence.
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."
-Robert Frost
here i am again.. sitting on a lazy weekend evening recalling a Robert Frost poem that i read in class 10th. I loved that poem just because of the sheer depth of message it leaves on you even at that point of time when the world seemed a far better place to live in.
i was just going thru some unfortunate events that happened on the eve of new year.. of course those were event that were a dampener but i was really amazed to see & hear about some of the reactions to that event & its repercussions. The strangest of them was a leader's ire against all the people who do not belong to that city!!!
i again went thru the newspaper & was amazed to read that all the suspects belonged to that very city.
Now picture this: a very true incident that happened yesterday evening when a colleague of mine & i were returning home. We were buying fruits from a vendor & near to that was a panwallah shop. we heard 2 ppl shouting each other (one being the paanwallah & the other his customer) & no sooner our attention was diverted.. the two started exchanging fists & tore each others clothes among lots of verbal volleys...A big crowd had gathered till then. finally after abt 5 minutes few ppl made them part. But now the real thing started to happen.. few "citizens" started making comments that were not at all connected to the reality of the fight (which no one in fact knew).. the comments varied from; making a force to fight "outsiders", or like "enough is enough".
I was just standing there & thinking about news that 2007 was an year of "mob" ! A mob of people whose sole intention is to do rabble rousing & make daily life of unassuming people hell. No body till the end came to know about the real reasons of the find & actually what were the DNAs of ppl fighting.. but was very well assumed that one was a citizen , the other an outsider & the outsider was the only culprit!!!!
I pray & hope that we become more sensible & patient in the days to come. Try to look at the larger picture & avoid making comments & conclusions that are far reaching in the negative sense.
taking a cue again from Robert Frost:
let us make bridges & not walls! Signing off over a cup of tea (Thanks to Aunty)
Faiz
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