a loud peace

on a walk this morning, or
maybe recently, i came to
the boundary that separates
my property from my neighbor's
and found that overnight he'd
erected an encircling wall

an exaggerated thing, made of
mud bricks from the Nile,
it rose up far enough to
strain the neck and blot
out the east-rising sun
i'd once enjoyed at this hour

it now cast a shadow out
across my pasture, driving
the beasts north to where the
sun could be felt on their
backs, and the grasses in
shade had withered to dirt

walking the breadth of the wall,
i came to a gate in the side of it
that drew open, a gate made of
iron rods topped with filials of ivory
pointing skyward. in the center
an obscure crest of arms

from behind the gate stepped
my neighbor, who nodded and
to whom i said hello with a
raised hand and he made the
sound of a bull snorting, scuffing
the dirt with the toe of his boot

he began by asking me my position
on this or that - my position,
specifically asked in an intemperate
tone, a demand to account for my
thoughts and beliefs on where i
stood on issues that lately vexed

taking my silence to be in opposition
to his own stance, and converting
that opposition to an insult of himself
and his wife, his children, his parents,
and their forebears, he braced his jaw

he let loose a nonjudicial ruling against
me, in a barrage of unfiltered acrimony, as
if such a lecture - if it did not penetrate
my intellect most surely would penetrate
my skull with the force of it - was in
and of itself the sole and single way of
believing on the matter

i may have winced in the face of the
charge, not from finding truth in
it but from the bawl. his words
were merely feral cats let loose
into a decaying barn

tell me how you feel, though,
i said to him and smiled

this and this and that, he spat at me
this and this and that, he pointed over my shoulder
this and this and that, he concluded, lifting
his chin and looking down his nose at me with
arms folded atop a rounded belly

i imagined what i might look like
to him down that long ridge, down the
straight thin line that reminded me of
a sighted rifle

to him i imagined i looked
quite small and the perfect game
for this hunt he was on,
unarmed as i was, taken by surprise
and shivering from the morning cold

have you no passion at all?
he accused
i think i must have blinked, not
really in answer to him but more
in response to the spit he flung at me,
like coals tossed from a fire

have you no conviction? he demanded
have you no faith, no beliefs, no fire
for what the important things are now?

his questions were something like
a flag wrapped around the body,
a clever shroud that tightened the
more i wriggled

why do you squirm, when it is i
who finds himself struggling
to breathe? why do you fidget
when i am the one whose fortune
has been robbed of me?

robbed, i said quietly to myself

yes! robbed! by weak people who
did not work to earn their own
keep. i've no place to live,
no place to eat, no place to
worship, no place to enjoy the
comforts of my desires and will

i looked beyond him, into his
property, with its long uprising
green lawn, his flowering fruit
trees, his bright white home
that looked in the east-rising sun
like an alabaster cathedral

i'd not robbed him that i was aware,
and i suppose my expression said as much

...not by you, perhaps, you stand for nothing,
but by people of your own mind

...people who slack and slander, who
do wicked things against reason,

whose very beliefs are counter to history
and convention, and therefore a direct hindrance

to my liberties. they rob me with
their obstructions to the long establishment

i contemplated for a moment in his
loud sigh and his hoofing of the ground
with his boots

i suppose my silence, in the face of
the violent times, in the presence of
the growing tide that erodes the under footing,
could be taken as a sort of selective
moral apoplexy. those who remain silent
consent, it has been said

i've been quite loud about my convictions, i said to him

when?

in my silent living, i explained

he spat on the ground

in my silent loving, i explained

he spat on the ground

in my silent giving, i explained

he spat once more

the words of the coward!

i shrugged

weak!

i sunk my hands into my pockets

you weaken us all with your lack of fight,
you put us all in danger for the sake of your
desire to embrace everything. you must choose!

i lifted my eyes and looked at him

even nature excludes! it excludes!

he left with the slam of his gate and marched
up the long green way to his own home
and i walked toward mine in a melancholy

away from that wall, through growing
blades. past the animals who grazed
silently. beneath my meager fence
that snagged the sleeve as i passed
beneath the barbs and gouged the
flesh of my arm

cursing, i tended to the blood
with a cold rag as i sat before
the window that looks down over my
property and toward my neighbor's
new wall

i staunched the bleeding
until the constellations on the rag
had gone from crimson to
pink and then disappeared altogether

i thought of the important things
to which he referred and i smiled

the house was a loud peace