Bruce Ross gives us a tiny landscape in three lines. There is an old wood fence, and on either side of it lies a flooded field. The flood has turned the surrounding ground into a single stretch of water, so the fence no longer separates one field from another. The image is calm but a little strange: a boundary still standing, yet made almost meaningless by the water. The speaker doesn’t spell out an emotion, which keeps the poem quiet and observational. You sense the stillness after heavy rain, the dark soaked wood, the sky reflected in the standing water. The mood is meditative—partly peaceful, partly lonely. The old fence suggests time and human labor, while the flood suggests nature quietly undoing that work, or at least ignoring it for a while.
On Both Sides — Summary
on both sides of the old wood fence flooded field