Around my home in an arid land
With tamarisk trees and steaming sand
My father built a fence.

Gathered ‘round the fire one night
Munching figs to our delight
He told us to not go past the fence.

When we asked why we couldn’t
He replied that we could, but shouldn’t
Wolves lived beyond the fence.

By our home we played and laughed
Shook our timbrels while we danced
We all stayed within the fence.

One eve I sat upon a stone
To see a deer come in, alone
Hopping over father’s fence.

The doe had such beauty and grace
Yet also wore caution on its face
As though it shan’t have breached the fence.

A stone whizzed through the air
And sent the doe off with a scare
Father warned of beauty ‘yond the fence.

One night a howl woke me from my sleep
Out the window one of our sheep
Carried off by a wolf past the fence.

One day in folly I went past
The boundary, leaving kin aghast
Breaking the rule about the fence.

Father snatched me from behind
Briskly moved me far inside
Then scorned me for leaving the fence.

As we grew the boundary stayed
In place while we still played
Within the strong, yet wind-whipped fence.

One eve we’d finished in the field
When a storm swept in to wield
Its might upon the fence.

The sun came up and we awoke
To see if anything had broke
Indeed missing were portions of the fence.

All looked at father now curious
Who would take such things quite serious
Yet toiled not to mend our fence.

One day a robber entered our land
Stealing ten sheep from my father’s hand
Simple was it to breach the fence.

That night father took twenty sheep to the line
For the robber to take this time
Yet no thief came near the fence.

Instead the next day the thief returned
With all the sheep, braced to be spurned
Yet father welcomed him inside the fence.

A fattened lamb was roasted on the flames
While father sat with us and explained
What to think about our old fence.

He said the old fence remained good
To keep in and out what it should
But at its best it was a mark
To keep us from wandering in the dark
For we were grown now and could discern
All the things our father yearned
To form our fence without a fence
To know the sheep from the serpents
To see the torment of the thief
Share our spoils for his belief
That boundary he made dear
Was built from love and not from fear.

Now that boundary seems far gone
Yet its spirit has lived on
For father’s heart became our fence.