To lay a hedge, in the traditional way,
a farmer must cut a small tree
almost through at the base
leaving just a bit of living wood and bark,
then bend it over, flat to the ground
to encourage new growth.
A long line of these wounded trees
send up shoots which are then trained
to form a dense thicket of vegetation
to contain livestock.
A defining boundary.
Smaller mammals, birds, and common toads
take advantage, inhabit, and flourish in this bosk.
Julius Caesar was inconvenienced by these types of hedges
as he campaigned across Belgium in the Gallic Wars,
enough so that he complained about them in his writing.

I have lain down, wounded but still living.
Grow my ultimatums as thorny walls
sown a forest of defenses.
A serried stand with few openings.
Tiny disappointments,
lazy lovers, feckless friends,
along with the joy of sun and poetry
skirt around and burrow to nestle in the gaps.

Misery the Conqueror, always menacing,
relentless war machine,
author of grotesque dreams,
keeper of the cries of my dead sons,
flayer of a fragile peace
backs away momentarily.
Inconvenienced but undeterred,
some despair eventually hacks through,
breaches the border,
scales the verdant wall,
pillages my safe pasture
and eventually moves on.
My trampled roots, swaddled in loam,
reach deeper, anchor in silt,
wait for rain.

– Lucinda Pinchot