The Fence

Around my home in an arid land

With tamarisk trees and steaming sand

My father built a fence.

Gathered ‘round the fire one night

Munching figs to our delight

He told us to not go past the fence.

When we asked why we couldn’t

He replied that we could, but shouldn’t

Wolves lived beyond the fence.

By our home we played and laughed

Shook our timbrels while we danced

We all stayed within the fence.

One eve I sat upon a stone

To see a deer come in, alone

Hopping over father’s fence.

The doe had such beauty and grace

Yet also wore caution on its face

As though it shan’t have breached the fence.

A stone whizzed through the air

And sent the doe off with a scare

Father warned of beauty ‘yond the fence.

One night a howl woke me from my sleep

Out the window one of our sheep

Carried off by a wolf past the fence.

One day in folly I went past

The boundary, leaving kin aghast

Breaking the rule about the fence.

Father snatched me from behind

Briskly moved me far inside

Then scorned me for leaving the fence.

As we grew the boundary stayed

In place while we still played

Within the strong, yet wind-whipped fence.

One eve we’d finished in the field

When a storm swept in to wield

Its might upon the fence.

The sun came up and we awoke

To see if anything had broke

Indeed missing were portions of the fence.

All looked at father now curious

Who would take such things quite serious

Yet toiled not to mend our fence.

One day a robber entered our land

Stealing ten sheep from my father’s hand

Simple was it to breach the fence.

That night father took twenty sheep to the line

For the robber to take this time

Yet no thief came near the fence.

Instead the next day the thief returned

With all the sheep, braced to be spurned

Yet father welcomed him inside the fence.

A fattened lamb was roasted on the flames

While father sat with us and explained

What to think about our old fence.

He said the old fence remained good

To keep in and out what it should

But at its best it was a mark

To keep us from wandering in the dark

For we were grown now and could discern

All the things our father yearned

To form our fence without a fence

To know the sheep from the serpents

To see the torment of the thief

Share our spoils for his belief

That boundary he made dear

Was built from love and not from fear.

Now that boundary seems far gone

Yet its spirit has lived on

For father’s heart became our fence.