Neighbors

Neighbors

At a distance I can hear their sounds 

Ghost of a Nana scolding children

Echo children’s shrill return

  “I wanna …”

    “He just …”

      “Do I have to  … ?”

What I know of them comes on the wind 

As is the wind alone makes up my mind

  Mind is wind

No difference despite the inverted squiggle

I think I know where from they come

A street off my street house up one 

  Turn right, two houses from that one

Sight of their play is blocked by trees

I’ve never gone to see them from here

  Would I side with the kids if I did?  

They are what the wind brings to me

Weekends bear the songs of woodworking

Power tools and planes, not the airborne kind

  But the thing that looks like a shoe, makes wood curls

Sounds stronger downwind, thinner when up,

Like naturalists banding songbirds, 

  Caught in nets between my ears

Shall I go see his works?

Happy to hear the clear wind blow

  I decide best I ought not know

Good neighbors make good fences