Almost everyone knows this bit from the Robert Frost poem “Mending Fences” : his neighbor says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

I used to think it stopped there, that Frost was recommending fences.  But read on, this is Frost talking to his neighbor:

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.’

There’s something in me, too, that doesn’t love a wall.  Remember picket fences, high enough to lean on but low enough to talk to your neighbors or say hi to dog walkers?  Walking up and down my alley,  of the 23 houses on either side there are only three whose yard you can see into, mine being one of them.  

I do understand the desire for privacy.   On one fence is posted a sign on which is the silhouette of a man aiming a high powered rifle and the words: “No trespassing. Violators will be shot.  Survivors will be shot again.”  Sounds like they’re shooting for the fun of it now.  Hmmm. I’ve never met them, and I don’t think I want to.   

Some people I meet in their front yards as they are watering or tending flowers or sitting on their porch.   Some I doubt I will ever meet because they have lawn services so I never see them in the front,  and go from car to garage to inside their houses.  

I live less than 4 miles from the heart of downtown Denver.  There are no cows here.  In this time of pandemic, it seems to me that community is as important as privacy.  Maybe more sometimes.  And that masks are more important than fences.   

To my neighbors who have asked after me, and shared their garden bounty and gifts and good wishes – thank you.