Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

     "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost validated some feelings that I have about neighbors and people in general.  It seems to me that people try as much as possible to avoid one another and be alone rather than get to know each other and live in community--which is something I am just as guilty of as anyone.  I have heard the phrase "good fences make good neighbors" before and thought it was kind of rude.  Because essentially what is being said is that good neighbors stay away.  Frost seems to share the same belief as I do.  He wants to question this old folkism.  In line 28, he begins,
          Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
          If I could put a notion in his head:
          "Why do they make good neighbors?...."
     He goes on to talk about how he and his neighbor don't have cows to keep out of each other's yard, they only have trees.  In doing so, Frost is challenging those who are cemented in their old ways; his neighbor certainly seems to be.  The neighbor is described as "bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top in each hand, like an old-stone savage armed" as he is preparing to mend the wall.  Just as he grasps firmly onto the stones, the neighbor seems to be grasping on to old ways of thinking without questioning them.  He lives by his father's motto, and doesn't think twice about the implications it has.  But Frost acknowledges "something there is that doesn't love a wall," possibly saying that there is something within him, even if he can't quite explain what it is, that doesn't like this old idea of separation and isolation.