by Kenneth Harper Finton ©2015

 “Give me land, lots of land with the sunny skies above, Don’t fence me in.”

 – Cole Porter

   Riding in the car on Route 287, the lead elk jumped a fence leaving the others struggling alone on the other side. Fences isolate and entrap while they pretend to protect and defend.

   “Good fences make good neighbors,” Robert Frost has said, as though building a wall around yourself is desirable and morally essential.

   It brought to mind the day I returned to the country from New York City and took my old dog for a walk in the woods. We came to a fence and I lifted  Lassie up over the fence, but she had gained weight and was heavier than I remembered. She struggled free, caught her back leg in the wire and hung there upside down and yelping. I ran off to the…