At the risk of ruining some of the mystery, I can say that what this poem describes literally is the landscape of New England, where I grew up. There the land was mostly in agricultural use until the end of the nineteenth century, and to separate their fields the farmers built elaborate stone walls out of the endless stones they turned up out of the extremely rocky soil. When New England moved more to an industrial economy, forests grew up over those abandoned farm fields, but the stone walls stayed, so it’s very, very common to be taking a walk in what seems like a forest in the middle of nowhere and find this fancy stone wall that is no longer serving any purpose whatsoever, except to intrigue you and be beautiful and remind you of the past and start you thinking about what other useless walls might be lingering around in your life and give you something to write a poem about. 🙂
Some mystery taken away, but sadness reinforced. Walls that are reminders of a dead way of life. Because I’ve seen some of those rock walls, the image [in my mind] is more precise, too. Before, I didn’t know whether to “see” a walls of rocks / stones or something more magical, like a wooden wall that “grew” itself.
Red Dragonfly 
Mysterious and slightly sad. Short poems are sometimes frustrating, because I want to know more: what was there, why is it gone?
I’d like to go back in time and see…
Beautiful poem.
Thanks!
At the risk of ruining some of the mystery, I can say that what this poem describes literally is the landscape of New England, where I grew up. There the land was mostly in agricultural use until the end of the nineteenth century, and to separate their fields the farmers built elaborate stone walls out of the endless stones they turned up out of the extremely rocky soil. When New England moved more to an industrial economy, forests grew up over those abandoned farm fields, but the stone walls stayed, so it’s very, very common to be taking a walk in what seems like a forest in the middle of nowhere and find this fancy stone wall that is no longer serving any purpose whatsoever, except to intrigue you and be beautiful and remind you of the past and start you thinking about what other useless walls might be lingering around in your life and give you something to write a poem about. 🙂
Thanks for the explanation.
Some mystery taken away, but sadness reinforced. Walls that are reminders of a dead way of life. Because I’ve seen some of those rock walls, the image [in my mind] is more precise, too. Before, I didn’t know whether to “see” a walls of rocks / stones or something more magical, like a wooden wall that “grew” itself.
Wow … now I really want to write a poem about a magical wooden wall that grows itself. 🙂 Or maybe a fairy tale would be more appropriate.