Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.
That sends the frozen-grown-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun….
Robert Frost
I know the poem is about “Good fences making good neighbours” or maybe it’s about freedom. About not building fences at all.
For me it’s about the endurance of nature. We may pave over everything and still there lives the deep essence of the Earth pushing back to break down what man has built and return it to the land.
This is a small purple Petunia. It grew from last year’s seed, which endured a harsh winter to sprout this little victory on my front steps. OK, it’s not a wall but it is concrete and the plant is forcing the step to yield, by wedging its fragile roots into the crumbling mortar. I have to marvel at its strength, its persistence, its endurance.
An engineer once told me that if you gave Nature fifty years, it would restore itself. I wonder if Chernobyl just needs another 10 years. I loved seeing the Berlin wall crumble. It gives me hope that horrible regimes will all eventually fail.
I live this poem often. Whenever I see a weed in a crack in the pavement, I think here is something that doesn’t love a wall.