The Perfect Wall

This dry wall was designed by a master mason.

He quarried shist, and cut each stone to the inch,

to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle,

to make a split in-line sixty foot bench

– individual stones like scales on a giant snake –

to grace the lawn between the house and meadow.               

The break between the pair directs the eye’s arc               

a quarter mile down the pasture like an arrow      

to boundary trees and ever changing mountains.

Its axis bisects our pond in perfect symmetry.  

This wall wasn’t meant to keep things in or out.    

Its sun warmed rocks are homes for frog and snake,

a hunting roost for bluebird, robin, wren,   

while mosses cling to its shaded northern face.

Alone on the wall, I have watched bluebirds fledge,           

turkey broods cross the meadow at sunset, deer graze

in early morning fog, unquiet hawks hunt.

It’s stark, enduring in the summer sun,                               

in winter, wind whipped snow waves gently blunt  

its flanks in ever shifting drifts.  This brace

of open monuments anchor landscape and people.

Its level line creates reflective space.