Border Walls (A Rannaigheacht Ghairid)

Stone by stone,
Hardened hands clear fields unsown;
Weary arms fell long-leaf pine—
Rocks define the land we own.

Dry-stack walls
Rise as our ambition sprawls
Through a mansion with locked gates—
Worth equates with gilded halls.

Marble hearts
Do not bleed when pricked by darts,
But our turrets block the light.
From this night, no one departs:

Unbeknown,
We have buried flesh with bone
And entombed our children here—
Vaults of fear rise stone by stone.

~Homewood, Asheville, North Carolina

First published in Quarterday: A Journal of Classical Poetry, vol. 3, no. 1 (Imbolc 2017): 40.  

Notes:
Homewood is a stone manor in Asheville, North Carolina, that was built in 1927 as the private residence of Dr. Robert S. Carole and his wife Grace Potter Carole. Subsequent additions to the main house included a 1500-square-foot piano room and a stone turret. The couple hosted a number of private piano concerts in their home. When the composer Bela Bartok performed there, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and the Vanderbilts were among the guests. Homewood is now an event and conference center.