Stonewalls and Donald Trump

[democrank]

Recently, when flipping through a book about New England stone walls, I thought of Donald Trump, The Wall Guy. It was like imagining a beautiful Shaker-made table and a raging forest fire in the same thought bubble. What an understatement to say that one wasn’t like the other. Beautiful horse-drawn stones, still in place season after season, year after year compared to razor wire mounted and ready to rip. Lady Liberty must have a broken heart.

Trump’s invasion into my stone wall thoughts led me to ponder how much this country has lost under his dangerous and frightening rule. The rapid fire of Trump’s demeaning tweets and his willingness to destroy any and all traditions and standards leaves our nation’s values in a violated heap. Laws mean nothing to Trump. The Constitution means nothing. Decency means nothing.Truth means nothing. If Trump was forced to choose between a Trump Steak and The Bill of Rights, he’d reach for a sharp knife without so much as a second thought.

I once believed if it came right down to it, most of our elected leaders would choose the United States over Russia, peaceful protesters over Nazi-sympathizers, clean water over drinking lead. I trusted that most leaders would value the EPA, laws against domestic violence, lower drug prices. I assumed leaders wouldn’t assist our enemies or make it easier to transport hazardous waste. We’re America the Beautiful. I’m stunned by how wrong I was and how much havoc and chaos Republicans will tolerate. There’s not a speck of reverence for what was or a speck of concern for what has been destroyed. Trump and his enablers have just about razed what we once were.

I’m going back to the stone walls. After the spring thaw, the summer heat, the winter’s snow, the wall will still be standing. Birch trees, maples, oaks, all mixed together on one side or the other. Old lilac trees, old blueberry bushes, wild roses, chipmunks, chickadees. All there, season after season, year after year. I hope so much it holds together. I hope we do as well.

I often think of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s.... But in the mud and scum of things, there always, always something sings.

I dearly hope we still are what we were, regardless of that awful, wicked Wall Man in the Oval Office.

[Wounded Bear]

1. Mending Wall...

Mending Wall

-Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

[Docreed2003]

2. How I miss seening those walls every day and in all seasons

Our house in RI had a series of those walls in the woods behind our house as well as along the road we lived on.

[llmart]

3. What a thought provoking post.

Thank you for the image of those old stone walls in New England. I am so disillusioned by this awful mess we are in and how on earth did we let it get to the point where a hatefilled human being who sides with our enemies can hold the highest office of the country? We can only hope that good wins over evil and that this is a wake up call for more of our decent citizens to realize how important it is to be more involved in our democracy.