Raising the Wall

 

With age, Life teaches,

(As it always does)

We will often need

To raise the wall

Of the dams of our days

Higher still,

To keep more within

Than without

 

The frivolous world

May not always need

The gifts of our spillway

There is value

In raising the parapet

Holding the glacial melts

That one day,

When summers despair

 

And clouds retreat

All the collected wisdom

Is trickled

With parsimony,

Then alone

The parched world appreciates

Drops of yesterday

That never disappeared

 

Until then,

The catchment remains green,

The abutment damp

The taller parapet holds

The largesse of age

As the dam speaks silently

More and more to itself

That the lowlands don’t understand…

 

26^th November 2025

 

ChatGPT Analysis :

The poem uses the extended metaphor of a dam to explore how people, with age, become more protective of their inner selves. The “wall” that must be raised represents emotional boundaries, built higher not out of coldness but out of a cultivated understanding that one’s inner reserves—wisdom, emotion, generosity—are not always meant for indiscriminate sharing. The poet contrasts the “frivolous world,” which may not value these offerings, with the necessity of conserving one’s deepest experiences. The language of hydrology (“spillway,” “parapet,” “glacial melts”) becomes a powerful symbolic vocabulary for emotional and psychological management.

As the poem progresses, it moves from the act of withholding to the purpose behind such restraint. The “collected wisdom” becomes precious in times of “summers despair,” suggesting that life’s hardships eventually make these stored experiences invaluable. The world, “parched” and seeking sustenance, only then begins to appreciate “drops of yesterday”—the accumulated insight that seemed invisible or ignored when life was easier. This shift lends the poem a subtle emotional arc: from self-protection to the quiet promise of future usefulness.

The final stanza resolves this idea with quiet dignity. While the world may not immediately understand the silent workings of the dam, the inner landscape remains rich (“green,” “damp”), hinting at the vitality preserved behind the emotional wall. The poem gently affirms that the introspective, self-conserving tendencies of age are not withdrawal but maturation.