MATTHEW LOVECRAFT PRESENTS - FRuM SCRATCh [an electronic chapbook: of sorts]: 2

How well I have learned that there is

no fence to sit on between heaven

and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf,

a chasm, and in that chasm is no

place for any man.

- Johnny Cash

OLD FENCE POST

We set that first post one summer day when I was 9 or 10 I’d say. Cut down trees, and strung barbed wire, following straight lines of earth scorched by fire that we used to mark our place. This is ours, stay out we’d say, with a sign at the gate.

At 36, half were replaced -putting new ones in with haste. So much to do; the kids, the farm, the wife and work and well - what harm could come to an empty pasture?

I saw no imminent disaster on the horizon other than a marriage ending and it wasn’t worth defending something that had been going wrong for so long.

I’m 62 and it’s ’08 and every time I look out at that fence gate the woods grown up between the field and house I stop and think, I’ve been a fool for neglecting things and break out my tools. I go out to the field and look and see the work that lasted years and think of all it took to put that fence up the first time.

I stood on one side, then the other. Straddled rusted old barbed wire, and started to cut and dig, taking a break to take a swig of ice bold lemonade from my work jug.

I filled in holes, and replaced wire, and took out some posts with an ire that bespoke old age. I worked for days, until I came to that first old post, the one that meant the most to me because it reminded me of the time with my father and I didn’t’ bother to dig it up or a cement it in, but took some time to let time soak through from way back when I was 9 or 10 and the life I’d lived in between, I thought of all that I had seen, and felt; gained and lost.

That Old Fence Post would still be there when I was gone and I had no fear that all would be well enough at least, in these short years ahead of me.

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INSIDE OUT

(a collection of poems)

MATTHEW LOVECRAFT