The Cage Within
“Stout fences do good neighbors make”
The saying goes – and so I take
A wire cage within the hutch
To separate the two from rush –Of violence from older doe
Protecting turf from younger so
They both can live as one grows up –
Arrangement crude, but good enough.That makes me think of fences mine
Between us folks – our ways defined
As we grew up to take our place
As members of the human race:I think of laws with teeth to act
If we ignore their bounding fact;
I think of borders to our lands
Both mine, and ours where soldier stands;How institutions do their part
To help us with our living arts;
Our language with its fencing role,
As we fulfill each culture's goal;I see how music stops each note
With silence, rests, composer wrote;
And in those silences there's freight
Of meaning as we hesitate.Yes, hesitate, like conscience’ twinge,
Which stays our hand while hate we are in,
And lets us find another way
To live with others through each day.For outer fences shift within,
To hearts, and minds, and skins we're in;
Some good, some bad, some mixed it seems,
But in that fact tomorrow gleams.navigation