The White Picket Fence
The call tonight broke the silence
Sister A. called with the news
Sister Linda came to town
Twenty years of separation ending
Father J. was dead.
I heard it in her whiskey drowned voice
Tears of sadness and relief
A cleansing for redemption
Like scraping old paint from wood.
The untended fence kept people out
And shut her in, ivy growing over
Hiding dry leaves and old dirt clinging to cobwebs
Bits of trash under broken twigs
That covered undisturbed burial grounds
Of pocket-sized creatures and insects.
Sister Linda came to town
To mend the fence, to pry open the old gate
And hose down the pathway to both sides.
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Submitted by gbaranoff on June 04, 2021
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 1,059 Views
Quick analysis:
| Scheme | xxAxxxxxx xxxxxx Axx |
|---|---|
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 602 |
| Words | 110 |
| Stanzas | 3 |
| Stanza Lengths | 9, 6, 3 |
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"The White Picket Fence" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 15 Mar. 2025. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/101785/the-white-picket-fence>.
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