The Fence

[snapper]

I remember it being built.
Rough pine palings,
solid hardwood posts and rails,
treated green faces crying proudly
“Look at me. Look at me. I’m new.”
And for a little while they heard,
and they looked,
those who were out there.
Children on their way to school, or perhaps not.
Mothers pushing strollers
along the narrow weed edged ribbon of concrete.
Old men with folded newspapers in calloused hands
and cigarettes between nicotine stained lips.
And some even slowed on their journeys
and made sounds as they looked.
If the fence didn’t entirely understand, it mattered not,
for it knew instinctively as new things do,
that the sounds were good and it was proud.
The fence and I came to know each other well.
It showed me where the raised nail heads lived,
and where the splintery cracks were waiting.
It was my tightrope,
my fortress wall,
my bridge across deep canyons
and flooded streams.
The weeks became months
and the months years
and the fence and I aged.
For me it was good,
reborn day upon day
ready to embrace the new.
Then …
slowly at first
but ever more quickly,
more certainly,
the fence and I grew apart.
No longer time
for its boyish enthusiasm,
for adventures
for challenges
for secrets shared.
Until came the time when I no longer saw it at all.
Was no longer aware that it existed.
Children, mothers and old men still passed by,
but now invisible in shiny new cars
with dark tinted windows
cocooning them,
protecting them.
By now the fence no longer welcomed the day.
Ashamed of its peeling skin, its warped palings
and leaning posts
it embraced the night time
where its weathered ugliness dissolved into shadow.
Those who still walked the pathways
when the darkness was full
had different faces,
night time faces.
And the fence heard their mumblings
as they stumbled against it
and it was sad.
Age? Loneliness? Hopelessness?
Who can say?
Perhaps a measure of each.
But one stormy night
when the winds it would once have laughed at
came belching across the flats
the fence came down.
Not with resistance,
but with meek surrender.
The storm had brought me out that night,
or so I thought.
Now,
in my own surrender years
I know the truth.
I had turned away, abandoned it.
It was not the storm that had brought me out that night.
It was the fence
summoning me
forcing me
to witness its indignity.
To hear its last whispered cry.
I remember the next morning
as I stood guiltily inside the fence line,
unbidden, my mind took me on a journey.
A journey of emotions so mixed that I became quite giddy
and thought for an instant that I was one with the fence.
And as a dying man sees his life flash before him,
so did I watch, from somewhere outside of myself,
a childhood of memories tumbling and swirling,
returning me to a forgotten magic.
A single tear made its slow travel across my cheek
as again I turned away.

© Snapper

[True~Reflection]

This can be taken as quite a gorgeous metaphor, but also as it is, it represents it's own wonderful meaning. There was a lot of really fantastic imagery in this piece. You weaved the story so perfectly and it flowed quite well. I loved personification of the fence and the way it was a true reflection of the speaker. There was a lot of different emotion on display here, beginning with a bit of lightheartedness, until the turn of the piece where it took on a more pessimistic outlook. The guilt that the speaker felt was also really nicely present. I thought it closed quite well, though sad, I don't think it could have been wrapped up any better.

[sleepingsun1]

I get the sensation that this is about age, and loosing the ability in that to imagine what appears to be materialism to be anything greater or more interesting. This is a really amazing and beautifully constructed piece, the imagery captures the transformation brilliantly.

[ladymaybebaby]

It seems as if the speaker grew up with this fence, it was a part of his childhood. It became part of games, and a boundary of sorts. As the speaker grew older he seemed to have forgotten about the fence, but it continued to age... once the speaker realized it, the fence had been 'meekly' blown away. I know it's only a fence, but I take that fence as a metaphor for so much else in the speaker's life.

I think you really wrote this one beautifully and you took full advantage of the metaphor! The images were lovely and you even manage to let the reader feel emotion toward a fence! Not an easy thing to do! So I would not hesitate to say, as a poet you have more than done your job here! Just truly excellent writing! I so enjoyed this one and I so happy I had a chance to read it! Thanks so much for sharing it with us!

-LMB
xoxo

[snapper]

Than you all. I labored over this piece, but as is so often said,"It was a labor of love."
Snapper

[gooseberry]

Snapper,this is utterly beautiful and so sad all at once.Whether this is a metaphor for something else in the speaker's life is not entirely clear,but it amounts to the same.I can't remember ever feeling such attachment to an inanimate object before,but its the personification used that engenders that emotion.You have done it with superb skill,I'm almost speechless.

[MusicMyLife]

Blown away by the story.

[snapper]

You are all very kind and generous with your responses. I thank you.
Snapper

[JASON]

fantastic work here - congratulations on the spotlight.
This must have taken a lot of thought and effort.

[Eggy]

A first rate job. An eloquent and moving commentary on the ephemeral nature of existence.
Very well done!

[PoeTAndrEw]

A well crafted story of the inanimate into a sentimental thing, the mourning and the unexpectedness and the time passing only seemed to extend the tones in the story, The diction itself was also another superb part of this piece. In the end all shall perish just embrace what there is.Poetry defined

[dornicks]

I read this at face value and thank you for the journey it took me on,while admiring the quality of your piece. Congratulations on the Spotlight,

dornicks

[dwells]

Superlative simile of a fence and the aging process, entwined in memories and possibilities, I was mesmerized from start to finish, thankyou!

[allmirth]

Your labor of love has given birth to great poetry, both descriptively and metaphorically. Congratulations on a well-deserved Spotlight!

Thanks so much for sharing.
Mirthy

[snapper]

Many thanks to all who read The Fence and responded so positively.
Snapper

[karrie]

What an absolutely amazing write! Congrats on the much deserved spotlight!

[Sasha]

What a gripping narrative!
I was taken by your effective usage ofextended metaphor, and your choice as in the fence to set the wheels of the poem on it. To me, it's a story of something/someone who's being appreciated at the beginning but abandoned at the end. because of new stuff that occupy speaker's life, new will be old, sometimes we really get bored with old stuff, and don't remember the memories and good time we had when those things were 'new'. The ending really struck me, the speaker left again, and now here I was wondering, is there a chance to fix it, but indeed sometimes it's too late!
Absorbing poetry, and deserved Spotlight, Congratulations!

Sash

[Chelle]

I agree with Sasha. it was the metaphor and personification of the fence that made this into a work we could relate to easily. I saw myself changing and aging and viewing things differently. The end, though, is like what is coming for all of us. When the time comes, will we accept it?

[snapper]

Once again my thanks to those who took time out to read (it is a bit long) and to respond.
Cheers,
Snapper