Loeffler “wall” quote inspires O’Melveny poem
WHAT MAKES OR BREAKS A WALL?*
By Mary K. O’Melveny
*A wall is fear in three dimensions
-- Jane Loeffler, architectural historian,
quoted in “Walls are the foundation of civilization. But do they work?”
The Washington Post, January 9, 2019
Frost asked who are we walling in
and who are we walling out?
But it is often the why that
matters most when the subject of
barricades rises up between us.
Everyone can cite a wall recalled
in dreamed sleep and woke nightmares.
Do we need more dividing lines?
Our landscapes are already filled
with hurdles grand and small: hedges,
stone pillars, razor wire, steel slats,
concrete blocks topped by parapets
and posts, forts with moats, metal cages,
partitions and palisades, cells,
gates of all dimensions topped by
glass shards, iron shanks, electric lines.
Those are just the physical ones.
As a girl, I heard Burl Ives sing
about how fences could limit
us, leave us breathless, longing for
an open range. Soon enough, trip
wires and blockades were scattered like
ordnance in otherwise normal
pathways that others crossed with ease.
As I tried to sort through limits
and booby traps, the calculations
required on these journeys seemed endless
– up or under, forward, sideways,
climb over, slip backwards – a march,
a dance, a bow and scrape, a forced
smile here, missed opportunity there,
an old route retaken, a newer
guide, a clearer map. Stones added.
Removed. Slogans painted. Detours
devised. Roadblocks repositioned.
As fear clings, climbs, clambers, desire
shifts course once more. Some walls fall.
Others degrade. Are bulldozed, backhoed.
Even as failures litter deserts,
alleyways, borders like crime scene
evidence, each new step contains
promise of another. If we
look closely, we understand that
limitations will always give way
when hope is in the mix. Our skies are
filled with celestial tales of yearning
that beckon like fire on a chilled
night. No walls can stop those sounds.
This poem is published in
MERGING STAR HYPOTHESES
by Mary K. O’Melveny, available from Finishing Line Press (2020).