Retaining Walls

Along the far edge of the parking lot
the landlord’s men stacked rough-hewn stone to build
a retaining wall for the runoff rain.
     Before the backhoe gouged the ground and broke
     the asphalt’s lip, a picket fence, of sorts,
     stood sentry around the dumpster and cars,
the kind of fence I could imagine settlers
built to keep their culture in as much as keep
unconquered wilderness out, they’d thought.
     Like all intended boundaries, the fence fell
     into disrepair. Spring rain, winter freeze
     did their harm of rusted nails, rotted wood.
Along the cornerstone, a divide opened,
a make-shift gate, that allowed a bypass
from the pot-holed drive on the outer side.
     A neighbor boy would pedal his bike through
     then abandon it next to the back steps.
     To my amazement, it was never stolen.
His mom shortcut her way from car to door
with full grocery bags and calls to him
to hurry and help her up the rear hall.
     Even I once pushed through the split balusters
     but tripped and caught my hand on splintered wood.
     I learned not to stray from the ordained path.
The workmen blocked my spot with cut and fill,
and kept the clay dirt and severed tree roots
within the yellow lines. The work was right,
     I had to admit. A new wall was needed.
     Bounds must be set, what is in, what is out.
     Old ways are abandoned. They always are.
With all the talk of more walls in the news,
it was foreseeable for me to think
of tearing down old walls, building new ones.
     There’s something about walls that comforts me,
     like a father who defines family rules,
     or common sense, or just the way things are.
I observed the men crenellate the cope
and implant PVC pipe for weep holes
and lay deadmen at right-angles as anchors,
     and I thought of letters, and words, and lines,
     the comfort that comes with structure and form.
     Even chaos relies on definition.
There’s an allure to chaos, isn’t there,
temptation that without God one can will
anything? We all like that sort of lie.
     The building manager has apologized
     to me: the retaining wall took too long.
     The men should’ve finished by now, but haven’t.
And I’m OK with that. Not all our walls
are meant to last. Maybe none of them are.
Yet, there is something about walls I love.