Scalia, in a 1995 decision on the separation of powers, made the same mistake as Palin. Two readers, on other hand, disagree with the standard interpretation of the poem. One writes:

In my opinion, Frost doesn't actually choose a side between his two characters.

It is true that the narrator feels "something there is that doesn't love a wall," and tries to convince his neighbor that they are not necessary. But the narrator is not Frost himself. He appears to be a whimsical man, who likes to tease that his apple trees will not eat the neighbor's pine cones, and wants to enter into jokes about elves. The neighbor is plainspoken and stolid, and only responds, "good fences make good neighbors." But his obstinacy could easily be due to finding the narrator irritating. Frost is talking about boundaries and how different people have different tolerances for them. I'm not out to set up Palin as a literary expert, but she is adopting a perfectly valid side of the argument.

The other writes:

You and Palin both have Frost wrong. It is the act of repairing the wall that forces the neighbors to work together each year.  It is this communal act of repairing the barrier that seperates them, that forces the human interaction, thus making them better neighbors.  Frost doesn't like walls, but jointly maintaining the wall is its own benefit.  Thus, "Good fences" (those that are kept in good order) make good neighbors" (neighbors who communicate, work together, etc. on a regular basis).

If the Palins and their new neighbors worked together to build a privacy fence, the communal act of building would make them better neighbors, according to Frost.  And it would also give the reporter a perfect opportunity to make small talk ("So, tell me about your kids ... ")

I think I'll forget Palin and focus on Frost. Thanks to @PoetryFound (and Andrew Sullivan) for bringing a good poem back into focus for me.

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; / And give us not to think so far away / As the uncertain harvest; keep us here / All simply in the springing of the year.

The weather's turned, and the old neighbors creep out
from their crammed rooms to blink in the sun, as if
surprised to find they've lived through another winter.
Though steam heat's left them pale and shrunken
like old root vegetables,
Mr. and Mrs. Tozzi are already
hard at work on their front-yard mini-Sicily:
a Virgin Mary birdbath, a thicket of roses,
and the only outdoor aloes in Manhattan.
It's the old immigrant story,
the beautiful babies
grown up into foreigners. Nothing's
turned out the way they planned
as sweethearts in the sinks of Palermo. Still,
each waves a dirt-caked hand
in geriatric fellowship with Stanley,
the former tattoo king of the Merchant Marine,
turning the corner with his shaggy collie,
who's hardly three but trots
arthritically in sympathy. It's only
the young who ask if life's worth living,
notMrs. Sansanowitz, who for the last hour
has been inching her way down the sidewalk,
lifting and placing
her new aluminum walker as carefully
as a spider testing its web. On days like these,
I stand for a long time
under the wild gnarled root of the ancient wisteria,
dry twigs that in a week
will manage a feeble shower of purple blossom,
and I believe it: this is all there is,
all history's brought us here to our only life
to find, if anywhere,
our hanging gardens and our street of gold:
cracked stoops, geraniums, fire escapes, these old
stragglers basking in their bit of sun.

"The Old Neighbors" by Katha Pollitt, from The Mind-Body Problem. © Random House, 2009.

Temperatures getting close to 60 today and I hope to get down to the Potomac River and celebrate being outside again. I love it when good weather makes its comeback in Spring and we all meet each other again.

December

by Gary Johnson

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here—and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
And are there angels singing overhead? Hark.