fences

I thought about fences
and what they are.

For they also came as immigrants,
carefully tucked between the words
of the Bible, or stuffed in old envelopes
and hidden in the lines of letters,
whose wrinkled yellowness evidenced
pages that were read again and again.
Most, however, were carelessly tossed
and stored in our minds
to be used as pious euphemisms.
So we've always had them here,
but these went undetected

We didn't want the others
(the earliest ones we erected) on the landscape,
for back then (in the beginning) we valued the open range
and the freedom to move freely
and to chart our own course -- unobstructed
to ourselves and to others.

So these first ones on the new land created resentment;
the critters objected to being prevented
from enjoying the cabbage, carrots, and tomatoes;
the cattle simply accepted their fate as prisoners;
the buffaloes and wolves fought against them
--and lost

But, these fences disturbing the soil were few,
and we took time every day to carefully mend them
and to erect them only when absolutely necessary,
like around the forts and the parameter of the jails
--just a few.

Then slowly we began making more and more
and more of them:
big ones, high ones, strong ones, big and high ones,
strong and big ones, high and strong ones,
high, strong, and big ones,
more and more and
more of them everywhere in barbed wire, chicken wire,
vinyl, bamboo, stockade, metal, split rail, board-on-board,
louvered,lattice,cement, stone,chail link,cyclone, ornate
wrought iron, aluminum, deer, plastic, PVC --electric...
and everywhere more of them,
around homes, schools, businesses, farms,communities, -- churches!

"To keep them out" we told ourselves
"For safety reasons" we told ourselves
while hoping to avoid the truth:
we had all become prisoners of sorts.
in regardless to our race, creed, color, or socio-economic
status, we had imprisoned ourselves

yet, our current plan is to make more:
bigger, higher, stronger ones in this country

on foreign soil we will tear down the ones they have
without regards to the moral manner of disposing of them
(blowing them up should never be an option,
especially when knowing
that the precious critters are playing "tag" nearby)
then we will make new ones: bigger, stronger, and higher ones.)

we don't mend fences anymore.

and when we and others speak of them,
we will laugh
for we will know that the biggest and the strongest and the highest
of the fences we have always had,
but they have gone

--undetected.

just like our personal gift
to ourselves:

Life in prison -- without
The possibility of parole!