Mending Wall
BY ROBERT FROST
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.
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 out-door 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.’
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.
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.’
Israel will have total control of the land, the air and the water.
Palestinians will have partial authority over their sons, their wives, and their daughters
on reservations which will be destinations
for planeloads of American tourists
who will buy native handcrafts and take selfie photographs
with these Palestinian “Indians”
who’ll have Jared to thank
for smallpox-laced blankets premature death and sense of despair which Trump's Evangelicals and Bibi's land grabbers see as Biblically fair. In their corrupt Gospel it's the only peace poss'ble.
the only good Injun's a dead 'un, conquer we must when our cause it is just, and learn to love what should disgust. You can commit most any sin . . . only thing matters is whether you win.
Email subscribers click here. BERNIEWORLD (January 20) (with apologies to Alexander Borodin, Robert Wright, and George Forrest) So I'm old let's be clear I'm the candidate Trump must fear, you know So I'm old, it's Bernie Sanders' time, good old Bernie Sanders' time, you know I am wise as you know, I constantly tell you so I am wise, I am old Bernie Sanders-wise so old Bernie Sanders-wise, it's so Women run, but they can't beat Donald Trump, I can Sanders can Only Sanders can
A SIMPLER TIME (January 19) Did Branca's pitch and Thompson's home run change anythingin 1951? In Manhattan there were children conceived as part of the celebration. Whereas, in Brooklyn others got started, in part, as consolation. “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
rough-hew them how we will. . .”
“Best-laid schemes. . .gang aft agley. . .”
and that will continue until
we can produce cast iron cinches.
But until then, it's a game of inches. (Having said that, I'll end this rhyme, noting your “luck” is better if you steal the sign.)
Email subscribers click here. SLOUGH OF DESPOND (January 16) (with apologies to Bob Dylan) Seems as tho' the GOP lost its collective mind, either that or they de-cid-ed, “better to be blind” Donnie knows this con-stit-u’ncy will ig-nore his lax mor-al-it-y so long as his ev’ry ap-point-ee en-for-ces their re-lig-i-os-ity no way of making Donnie ever go away Outside of Dem-o-crats (some who might be worse), no one an-y-where can free us of this curse Of can-did-ates, there were — at least — a score, al-most ev'ry one a bore with whom Donnie’d mop the floor as in des-per-a-tion, Dems search for some way of making Donnie somehow go away Dem’s never know it’s time to go when their ammo's spent Donnie’s crowd is “loud and proud” and they do not relent They’ve got guns and the Dems have none come High Noon showdown Dems are done So Dems sit back and sip some good Bordeaux no point in fighting toe-to-toe no way of somehowmaking Donnie go away Though Nancy did her level best, impeachment can not work, not with Mitch and GOP backing up the jerk The high crimes and mis-de-mean-ors clause is not enough to even give them pause because they know Donnie knows no law and if he did, they know that he’d ig-nore, (no matter that the whole wide world de-plored) anyone or anything he saw as moored in his way and to-tal-ly refuse to go away Re-mem-ber how we were taught no one's above the law A pretty thought that counts for naught as Donnie clearly saw Now that Donnie's found Ar-tic-le II there is no tell-ing what he’ll do with his short attention span and shorter fuse and his pred-i-lec-tion to ab-use given the Su-preme Court’s skew-er-ed views, I’d say there is no way that Donnie goes away
In a new book, the former pope makes a firm defense of celibacy for priests as Pope Francis is expected to decide whether to allow married priests in remote regions. Let the intrigue begin.
