........................................................................................ - a weBlog by Snowy and me.

Sunday 19 May 2013

Families And Fences

When Robert Frost wrote the line
'Good fences make good neighbours'
in the poem 'Mending Walls' in 1913,
he wrote it about nature, and two men
who met only twice a year.
How I wish that the line were not used
to idly describe agreeable distance,
and obscure rites over property.
I would see it used, instead
to describe the grace under pressure
that families need to repair their divisions,
via gender roles, hierarchies and open secrets,
as they all  meet and avoid each other
for sharing a house, daily.

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