Write a paragraph describing the connection the speaker in “My Wall” has to the setting of the poem. The wall is just a wall:
pale white stones
carefully shaped and balanced,
strong and sturdy,
5 still jutting up towards the sun
after a thousand years,
more or less.

I like to eat my lunch
while leaning against the wall.
10 The stones are cool against my shoulders
and sink into the dry earth
as though the wall is a tree
with roots that reach down through dirt,
reaching for strength.

15 Still, the wall is just a wall.
Not a monument or a statue
or the remnant of some great palace.
It means only
that there were people here once
20 long ago
just as there are people here now.

The olive trees in this valley
are old and wrinkled
like my grandmother’s hands.
25 My family has farmed here
for years upon years.
I like to think
perhaps an ancestor
rested during the harvest
30 in the shade of the wall.
Perhaps it was taller then
and less crooked.
Perhaps the rough spot on the stones
rasped his shoulders
35 as amiably as mine.
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