He built it not to keep things out
(except, perhaps, the honeysuckle vines
which incessantly launched their fragrant conquests
out into his pristine lawn)
nor hem things in,
(though a man of boundaries
I’ve known him to be).

By Great Depressions’ yardstick he was reared to use
to size-up value in a thing
it couldn’t really measure up,
for standing post-like on the fringe
it didn’t give a hard-days’ work
or save a nickel for its kin.

You see, within the wooden fiber of his frame
he felt one must be tirelessly about one’s tasks,
producing self-sufficient wares without an ounce of waste.
Labor purely for aesthetic wage
was vainly spent, it seemed to him.

Why, then, did he search out fence posts, nails and boards
and toil so diligently
in Alabama summer sweat
to make an idle fence?

I feel he did in part because he longed to build.
So crafty with his tools was he
that few repairmen ever set one foot within his realm.
He never could stay far away from wood, as well,
for shelter, food and childhood’s clothes
were bought outright without a debt
by lumber planed and woodchips shorn
just back behind the smokehouse
in the old sawmill.

And, then, there was the pride he took in keeping up the yard.
Folks around still speak about the beauty of it…

However, in my heart I know
these weren’t the purest motives for his work,
for hammer never would have struck
nor white-washed paintbrush stroked
if not for sacrificial love
implanted like a post within his red-clay soil.

He sought to make surroundings fine and fair for his dear wife,
as deep within he knew he’d found
a rare and fragrant flower of graceful vine
caught winding ‘round his planks of wood in younger days.

And for his boy, of course,
he yearned to pass along his craftsmanship,
to teach the young one how to build
and how to give a helpful hand
to those with whom he’d be called to task,
and so provide a summer thrill
to a restless, cherished gift that tagged along.

He was himself, in no small way
like something planted in a red clay hill,
secured to stand upright and firm
by packing down around his base,
as boots and up-turned shovel ends
of loving kin had labored long,
foundations to provide for him and progeny to come.

The fence he built, much like the man, was kept in good repair:
no sagging planks allowed, no leaning posts,
no mildewed shades of white.
Its boards held back life’s tangled weeds
and marked the hallowed ground of home
to set example fine for those who chanced to look his way.

As will come to most of us
his time for leaving home place came some years ago.
I took opportunity the other day
to pass it by, that holy site of childhood relics
lain to rest in packy catacombs of clay.
The fence (of sorts) still stood there on the fringe,
though not as I remember it;
for now its tilting, brownish posts
push out the nails which held his well-planed planks so close,
and fractured on the row lie rotting boards
among the greedy, viny legions no more thwarted
by the boundaries that he laid.

I left that place and came to visit him in dwelling new.
Repairs were needed on the garden gate,
and so we gathered up his well worn tools
and headed to the chore.
But now it is the boy who lays his hammer to the nail;
it has to be, you see,
for decay of dreaded scourge has breeched his treated timbers.
Dexterity departed, he requires patient coaching
just to simply hold my plank,
and wanders off into the yard before the job’s complete.

And so it now becomes my honored task to shore up fences.
I’ll try to use the craftsmanship bequeathed to me
so lovingly through faithful hands
to straighten rails, refasten planks,
and splash fresh coats of whitewash all along the rows.
Instruction’s echoes serve me well
as I lay heel and shovel’s end
to firm up soil around each post.
For though I’ve traveled far from childhood’s hallowed grounds
some cloddy clay stuck to my soul,
implanting newer lawns
with sanctifying memories
of earlier fence-building days.