{"id":23534,"date":"2025-03-20T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/?p=23534"},"modified":"2026-02-09T08:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:27:07","slug":"good-fences-make-good-neighbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/2025\/03\/20\/good-fences-make-good-neighbors\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I recently read the famous line from Robert Frost’s poem: \u201cgood fences make good neighbors.\u201d\u00a0 I remember my Dad quoting it to me, making a point about the importance of privacy and boundaries for healthy relationships. I always imagined the fences to be waist-high and white-picket, kind of like in the movie Terms of Endearment<\/em>,<\/a> which would keep Shirley MacClaine safe from her dubious neighbor, Jack Nicholson.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Or the fence that Tim Allen\u2019s character would talk over when he\u2019d be getting advice from his neighbor Wilson in Home Improvement<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo: Everett Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a little embarrassed to admit that I didn\u2019t know the name of the poem whose last line is so often quoted. It’s called<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mending Wall. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I read the title the first time, I was shocked. Triggered, really. You see, since I live and work at the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona, the word wall<\/em> has a complex, multi-layered meaning for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, quite frankly, \u201cmending\u201d is not a word I would use to describe it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was at the Customs and Border Patrol central office in Nogales I became aware that officers there used the word \u201cfence\u201d when referring to what I call \u201cThe Wall.\u201d This structure doesn\u2019t  look like a \u201cfence\u201d to me: <\/p>\n\n\n

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Image: CBP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Image: Slate Magazine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image by the author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Image by the author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Image by the author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I read the poem over and over again, and the line that makes the most sense to me is\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something there is that doesn\u2019t love a wall. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Artist: Jose Luis Sotero<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something there is that doesn\u2019t love a wall,<\/em>
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,<\/em>
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;<\/em>
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.<\/em>
The work of hunters is another thing:<\/em>
I have come after them and made repair<\/em>
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,<\/em>
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,<\/em>
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,<\/em>
No one has seen them made or heard them made,<\/em>
But at spring mending-time we find them there.<\/em>
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;<\/em>
And on a day we meet to walk the line<\/em>
And set the wall between us once again.<\/em>
We keep the wall between us as we go.<\/em>
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.<\/em>
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls<\/em>
We have to use a spell to make them balance:<\/em>
\u2018Stay where you are until our backs are turned!\u2019<\/em>
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.<\/em>
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,<\/em>
One on a side. It comes to little more:<\/em>
There where it is we do not need the wall:<\/em>
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.<\/em>
My apple trees will never get across<\/em>
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.<\/em>
He only says, \u2018Good fences make good neighbors.\u2019<\/em>
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder<\/em>
If I could put a notion in his head:<\/em>
\u2018Why do they make good neighbors? Isn\u2019t it<\/em>
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.<\/em>
Before I built a wall I\u2019d ask to know<\/em>
What I was walling in or walling out,<\/em>
And to whom I was like to give offense.<\/em>
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,<\/em>
That wants it down.\u2019 I could say \u2018Elves\u2019 to him,<\/em>
But it\u2019s not elves exactly, and I\u2019d rather<\/em>
He said it for himself. I see him there<\/em>
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top<\/em>
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.<\/em>
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,<\/em>
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.<\/em>
He will not go behind his father\u2019s saying,<\/em>
And he likes having thought of it so well<\/em>
He says again, \u2018Good fences make good neighbors.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/em> <\/em><\/em>Robert Frost<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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