A New Englad Wood

At the edge of a New England wood
there is a crumbling stone wall,
so painstakingly and lovingly built,
or not built but crafted
from boulders dug from the earth
to make room in the soil, barely suitable for
subsistence farming.

Beyond the wood and its aging boundary
is a plush Scotts™ lawn,
chemical turf builder applied in spring,
pots of Miracle-Gro with
grocery store tomato plants,
and a newly constructed
four bedroom, three bath, colonial-style house
with double-paned glass and central air.

The wall seems to pen-in oaks and maples and ferns,
a comically small barrier to hold in such a forest.
Or perhaps it isn’t the wall;
perhaps it is the few trees that escaped,
mocking the walls feeble attempts,
who hold the forest at bay
like soldiers guarding the house.