A Weathered Wall

As the country gleamed new machines and his neighbors took off for the city mills, he opted to stick around and fight the change. His land was important to him. Not only did it serve as his livelihood, cultivating land was also his way of life, something he dreamed about as a boy and knew he'd always do.

He remembers as a boy looking out his back window onto the land. His family has had this land as long as his father could recall. The land was lush and deciduous. Forever green in the young boy's eyes.

As his years added candles to his cakes, the sticks outside began to disappear. At first he didn't notice. Then one winter morning he gazed through the pane and could count the snow-covered trunks in his yard. The land was damaged and deserted.

Winter brought deep freezes followed by spring's heavy rains. Land that was left was washed away. Rich and fertile no more. All around him people begin erecting fences to help with the erosion.

The trees, like his family were gone. His land looked cold and deserted. The freezes and rains heaved large stones up from beneath the surface. They scattered across his acres replacing his plants and dreams.

The stones were the anchors for the many trees. Each tree wrapped its roots around the stones to grow strong and steady above all. Now with the trees gone, the anchors are all that is left.

With the threat of his land disappearing and becoming useless, he follows suit with his peers and begins his fence. Many had taken the stones from their tree-vacant land to build their fences. It's his chance to save his dream. He builds it up rock by rock. Boulders make the base and the smaller stones pile atop. He delicately places each one with purpose. They fit together intrinsically. Nature's own puzzle. ​

The wind blows and the rain pellets his back. He pulls the footing stones off the stone boat. ​No weather keeps him away. The wall must be built if he has any chance of preserving his land. It must be able to stand the test of time.

It weaves through the woods. Angles and intersections, corners and somewhat straight lines. The stones still rest atop each other. They settled where he placed them, untouched. The spaces he left in the wall are now filled with leaves and sticks the wind carried.

It's not a perfect wall. Some of the building stones could have been better placed. It does its job though, and that is the important part.

As the years pass by, the wall still stands. He admires it from the same window he looked out as a boy. Some of the trees and vegetation have returned, but the landscape is forever changed. Rocks, trees, and a solitary man. The wall stands as a reminder of another life.