I’ve often wondered about walls:
The purposes they serve;
Are they shutting out,
Or keeping in?
These thoughts crossed my mind,
When to the left, the wall first blocked my view.
Up ahead where its smooth regularity ceased,
wrought-iron bars rose to sculptured points.
Glancing through, I noted man’s barrier enforcer,
A prodding rustle belying mass moving in the leaves,
A brown variegation swaying cypresses played shadows with,
A haughty breeze playing tag with trees.
While large paws rustled a path ahead,
Though anxious, I kept my stride.
Then framed by bars (Thank God),
Tartared teeth ravaged the air above my head,
and baritone barks blustered liked air fractures.
When my glance met those spherule eyes,
upsloped and junctured above those rows of threatening teeth,
I remember thinking, “Maybe barriers have their purpose.”
With only a pause in my stride, I scowled
in self-proclaimed victory.
Wall-tapping,rhapsodic and frothy like waves,
Ivy danced, lushly dressing the otherwise nondescript wall.
“Even division,” I thought, “can bear a dance of beauty.”
Screeching tires,
Near and to my right,
Distilled my lofty thoughts,
Destination now recalled.