Boundaries–Jingle’s Poetry Potluck

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

Submitted to Jingle’s Poetry Potluck for which the theme is Laws, Rules and Regulations: http://jinglepoetry.blogspot.com/

Boundaries

Why do we build fences?
They can’t hold out the wind,
or leaves that flutter
from the neighbor’s yard
into ours.

A flock of quail descends
into our spent garden
and feasts,
pilfering seeds that
should be fertile in the Spring.

Remember the night
raccoon purloined the Koi?
Or how in Summer we lay
awake, listening to the
long, long, short, long whistle

of the trains, into,
out of Reno, dragging loads
of who-knows-what to
destinations East and West?
Sound’s intrusion.

Tonight, my fears are not
of robbers or of things that harm.
What scares me most is
what’s within—
the limits of a closed mind.