The Fence

[just mercedes]

I watch the ghosts in the evening haze
along the pasture fence. There's one too many 'the' in these lines for me

We built that fence fifty years ago,
my back wet from driving pick and shovel,
placing the posts exactly where Grandfather pointed. Good imagery

My aching fingers like broken sticks Good imagery
from stretching barbed wire in perfect lines
on posts flawlessly spaced.

He towered above me.
"Build it well," he said,
"and it will last longer than we will."

A breeze swirls the ghosts and haze away
from the glistening taut wire. I can accept that the haze or fog made fifty year old wire glisten, but I've never seen a fifty year old fence that still had taut wire.

I keep coming back to this. It holds a lot for a simple poem - learning life's lessons isn't easy and it's painful, the older generation has a lot to teach us, love and respect for family, keeping things in their right place, the way that things can bring back people to memory. Yet in the end it somehow disappoints me, lets me down. I'm not even sure why.