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.

You ask if I love you,
Well what can I say?
You know that I do and that
This is just one of those games that we play
So I’ll sing you a new song,
Please don’t cry anymore
And I’d ask your forgiveness,
Though I don’t know just what I am asking it for
Hold me now,
Warm my heart,
Stay with me,
Let loving start

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 outdoor 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.’

He’s walking along with his soul in his lungs,
You stare at him long you can find a new song.
Everyone thinks they’ve got a new phrase,
But you’re still miles away.
I said, you’re still miles away.
Hold me now,
Don’t start shaking.
You keep me safe,
Don’t ever think you’re the only one
When times are tough in your new age.

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.

Let he without sin cast the first stone if you will
To say that my bride isn’t worth half the blood that I’vespilled
Point your finger and laugh if you choose
To say my beloved is borrowed and used
She is strong enough to stand in My love
I can hear her say….
I’m weak
I’m poor
I’m broken, Lord
But I’m your’s
Hold me now, hold me now

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.’

Image Attribution

Thank You (the real authors): Robert Frost, Thompson Twins, Polyphonic Spree, Jennifer Knapp, Pink Floyd

About Kimberly Roth

Being a highly career-oriented individual, Kimberly Roth parlayed a degree in philosophy and sociology into a skyrocketing job as an Executive Assistant – coffee, anyone? Exercising her day-job to conceal a covert life as an armchair theologian and pop-culture guru, Kimberly spends way too much time rambling on at www.barefootbohemian.blogspot.com. She lives in community, which means there is both a married man and a baby in her home… neither of them belonging to her, or to each other. Kimberly owns more music than she can listen to, hordes more books than she can read, and is a self-proclaimed yard sale queen. She also loves the show Clean Sweep and does not see the irony in the situation. Kimberly likes to explore the deeper side of life: the infinite superiority of front porches to back yards; comparisons and contradictions between Southern and Christian hospitality; why Jeff Tweedy is a genius despite singing in jibberish. One day she will write from the porch of her dream home, where all will be welcomed and the sweet tea will flow in abundance. Her passion is to see the gospel of God’s kingdom preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and that those who call ourselves Christians in our nation, who have had our share of the preaching, will learn how to live that kingdom out with one another.