I cast a long, westward shadow on the earth this morning. Fifty feet at least. I'm not sure I want that kind of influence. Can I be trusted with it?
We leave the rental car in a lonely pull-off about a mile from the Buttercup Ranger Station. Mom, age 72, is wearing a turquoise blue jump suit as I lead her by the hand far out into the desert. I'm surprised she wants to make the trek. We stumble through the flotsam and jetsam of American leisure strewn along the ground as a hard wind from the north blows at our backs, pushing us on like tumbleweeds, out to the dirty black scar in the distance. As we get closer the scar grows immense, stretching as far as par-boiled eyes can see after a day in the brilliant Yuman sun. Ignoring the lilting warning post 50 meters out we press on until the scar towers over us, fifteen feet of six-inch black steel, closely packed, anchored and bolted onto the shifting sand. The wind through the gaps in the immense steel pickets makes the fence moan and scream with the injustices of time, and timing, all along its endless length. Change is coming. Change has come. Change will come again. The Spaniards took our brief footprints from the Indians, then morphed into Mexicans, who lost out to the Americans, who, when nobody was looking...
Walking back to the black KIA Rondo I hold onto mom's hand tighter than before. The coarse grains of America bite hard into our eyes and faces before blowing off into northern Mexico. The fence won't stop them. It can't. I don't know if this is what Frost had in mind when he said "good fences make good neighbors." Maybe. And I don't know if this fence is a good thing or not. Maybe. But one thing is for certain: it is a sad thing, this long, lonely, moaning fence in the desert. Endlessly sad.
2 comments:
One of Frost's points in his poem is that fences always work two ways but it isn't always exactly apparent how that will play out. I guess though there is always a sadness. But what a memory seeing it with your mom...that adds a sweetness to it beyond the sorrow...you make the image strike home.
I like this a lot. I'm actually building this fence. I got an update and pictures this morning. I don't know either, but you said it very well. It's sad.
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