Mending Wall by Robert Frost and A Game of Catch by Roger Rosenblatt Human beings have the extraordinary ability to place themselves at a comfortable distance from each other other and call it "mutual understanding". a “friendship” or even a “true love”, but they are all lies. The essence of the mystery of man is somewhat paradoxical. He longs to become more familiar with those around him, but is unwilling to allow this to happen. The power of "Mending Wall," one of Frost's most cited poems, rests in opposition. His two famous lines contradict each other. The poem supports this: there is something that doesn't like a wall. But he also states that: Good fences make good neighbors. The contradiction is reasonable, since two different types of people make conflicting observations and both are right. Man cannot live without walls, borders, limits and above all self-limitations; yet he resents all chains and rejoices in the destruction of all barriers. In "Mending Wall" the border line is useless:Where it is we have no need of the wall.And, to emphasize the point, the speaker jokingly adds:He is all pine and I am apple orchard.My apple trees will never grow throughAnd eat the cones under his pine trees, I tell him. Far-reaching connotations can be found in this poem. It also states one of the greatest difficulties of our time: whether national walls should be strengthened for our security, or whether they should be torn down, for they impede our progress toward understanding and a future common humanity. "Mending Wall" can also be considered a symbolic poem. In the voices of the two men the younger, capricious, “modern” speaker and the old-fashioned farmer who responds with his one stubborn phrase, the inherited aphorism. Some may feel the opposition of two forces: the zeal of revolt, which challenges tradition, and the spirit of moderation, which insists that customs must be upheld, built upon, and continually rebuilt, as a matter of principle. The poet himself looks down on such symbolic analysis. He denies that the poem says anything more than it seems to say. Dispute is the heart of poetry. It is answered in the paradox of people, in neighbors and competitors, in the antagonistic nature of man. Roger Rosenblatt's essay, “A Game of