Today I'm in the fence-building business. Both sides of our gardens have woven slat fences that are greened with moss, broken and brittle and with posts that are shoogly (scottish word for unstable!) So we do the first one today, my neighbour and I, two amateurs who know how to dig holes, mix postcrete, use a spirit level, and both want a shot of the paint sprayer! As to whether the fence will be the epitome of fenceness - we'll see. But the negotiation and agreement and shared labour needed to build it is one of those episodes when social fabric is repaired and a few strands of neighbourliness woven in. Reminded me of some words from Robert Frost's poem, 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.
......
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.
.....
Good fences make good neighbours.
Robert Frost.
Frost had such a clear mind about what makes for good and satisfying social relationships. Irrascible, confrontational, unforgiving and at times downright cussed he might be - but he knew how to put into words the way things should and could be, when human beings make good choices (the Road Less Travelled) or cement neighbourliness with postrete (Mending Wall) - as in this case, fallen boulders replaced in the interlocking balance of angle and weight that is the genius of the early New England drystone wall (and the Scottish drystane dyke).
Comments