A simple summarization of "Mending Wall" would be the speaker talking about the wall between his property and his neighbors" property. Year after year this wall erodes and breaks apart because of nature, hunters, and things that no one sees or knows. Every spring the speaker calls his neighbor and they rebuild the wall, although the speaker seems to believe it is a pointless act. The simplicity of the poem seems to be one person complaining about how useless the act of rebuilding this wall is, but the underlying tones of Frost's work abound.
The speaker tries to criticize his neighbor's continuation of this silly habit: "My apple trees will never get across / And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him" (25). He makes light of the wall building because he does not see how the pine cones and apples mixing would be an issue. However he fails to realize the fact that it is he who calls his neighbor every spring to rebuild this wall that he finds so pointless. He also says "The work of hunters is another thing:/ I have come after the, and made repair" (5). It seems that although he complains of the rebuilding of the wall he still goes out and fixes it, even at another time when his neighbor does not. So who knows if the speaker or the neighbor is right? At first it would seem the speaker only wants to humor the neighbor. Yet he too seems to believe the neighbor's saying. " "Good fences make good neighbors." " (45).
Looking at it on a personal scale this adage can take many true forms. Literally and figuratively, good fences can indeed make good neighbors. In today's society the average backyard of a home in the city has a fence. Sometimes it's a short, metal fence that's easily climbable. Sometimes it's a tall wooden fence that splinters your hands if you lean against it. Most people would say they are there to mark property lines so that you don't water their grass and they don't cut yours.
