They were the People. 
The People Who Defined. 
Who took to heart the dictum
that good fences make good neighbors.
Who wanted to be seen as Good Neighbors
and had to reconcile that
with the need to own completely
both what was inside
and what was outside
The Fences. 

So they were The People,
and the others were The Others.  Easy at first
when all that was required was to say
this is a House and that is Not, this
is Our Side Of The Fence and that is Yours
(also defined as Theirs For Now). 

That’s a Rabbit
than can jump freely over, and a Fox
that can follow.  That’s a Stream
which cuts through.  (They call it a Creek
over the Fence.)  That Stone
is the defining Stone.  Any other stone
is measured against that Stone, is found
Wanting.  Easy, easy,
easy…Adam’s Joy,
they called it.

The People ran into trouble
when it came to the abstract: what is Freedom, for instance,
when there’s that Fence plainly creating an exception
to however Freedom would come to be defined?
Take this Poetry, they said,
or this Painting, or this Rhetoric;
this Music.  How to define those things
when there’s another definition over the Fence
and we need to include both if we are to own it all?

Perhaps, said the Wisest Of The People,
we could define by negation to begin? 
So the Others have no Poetry, no Art,
and we can say that what we have Is,
and theirs is Not That, and What We Have is
Not Theirs?

But what if we want That Which They Have,
said some of the People.  And what if we consider
that they may have their own definitions?  Perhaps
Adam’s Joy is cumulative and not exclusive.
Perhaps we may find more Joy over the Fence.

Then we shall redefine enough to hold them
in our Paddocks and Pastures, said the Wisest.
We shall move the Fence, and call their definitions
into question for being Lesser, or Stolen.
Or perhaps,

you are not of the People?
Perhaps we missed something when we fenced you in
with us? 

Whatever, said a painter
and a sculptor and a poet.  Whatever,
said the Free. 
We just do.  We
are the source of definition,
and the Fence is nothing to those
who have no idea of neighborhoods.
Who look over the top
and never look down.