By Arizona Republic

Editorial Board

You want a border wall? OK. Here’s how you do a wall.

Rise above the politics and the predictable.

Use a poet’s perspective.

No. This isn’t children’s storytime.

This is an invitation to imagine what could be if we had the courage to realize that “no” and “hell, no” are not the only two options.

You want a 'beautiful' wall? This is it

Donald Trump wants a “beautiful” wall between the United States and Mexico.

Let’s do it.

Mexican poet Homero Aridjis and Professor James Ramey of Mexico’s Metropolitan Autonomous University say they know how.

They want to put solar panels along the border. Think about it.

MORE: What we know about Trump's border wall

“A solar border would alleviate a range of binational problems,” they wrote for Huffington Post late last year.

Their logic is impeccable: “Since solar plants use security measures to keep intruders out, the solar border would serve as a de facto virtual fence, reducing porousness of the border while producing major economic, environmental and security benefits on both sides.

“It would make trafficking drugs, arms and people all the more difficult for criminal cartels.”

One bidder submitted a plan (yes, really)

And it would create high-paying jobs on both sides of the border.

That’s a list of concrete benefits that flows in both directions.

Not practical, you say. The poet has an answer.

“You have to be an optimist in the middle of the pessimism,” Aridjis told The Arizona Daily Star’s Tom Beal.

Aridjis will speak at University of Arizona’s Haury auditorium at noon April 20 to celebrate Earth Day.

But this isn’t just the dream of some tree huggers.

Among the proposed designs submitted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for Trump’s border wall was a plan from the Gleason Partners LLC of Las Vegas to put solar panels on sections of the wall.

Managing partner Thomas Gleason told Associated Press: "I like the wall to be able to pay for itself."

Professors say such a wall is feasible

Of course, this plan makes solar panels part of a larger barrier between the two countries.

The poet’s version uses panels instead of a wall.

And why not?

Two professors wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Aridjis and Ramey’s idea “is not only technically and economically feasible, it might even be more practical than a traditional wall.”

Vasilis Fthenakis, director of the Center for the Life Cycle Analysis at Columbia University, and Ken Zweibel, former director of the Solar Institute at George Washington University, pointed out that a solar wall would “place more people, surveillance and physical infrastructure at what is now a largely deserted, lawless and dangerous part of North America.”

Not only that. “It would be a beautiful structure,” they say.

And a more appropriate one.

Both sides of border would benefit

Mexico and the United States are not enemies. The two countries share values and have common interests.

We like their food. They like our Coca Cola, which they have, in fact, improved on to the point where “Mexican Coca Cola” is sold in some U.S. stores at a premium. And those burritos? We turned them into chimichangas. Yum.

The synergy plays out in cultural exchanges and a valuable trade relationship.

The fact that the United States also has a taste for illegal drugs and cheap labor supplied by Mexico has been the source of great tension and created dangers along the border.

Mexico has done too little to curb the illegal transit of both across our southern border.

But this country has gained from the hard work, integrity and culture of Mexican immigrants. In fact, in the Southwest, it is folks from Ohio and Minnesota who are the immigrants. Really. Ask the Tohono O’odham.

Bottom line: We all benefit from new people and new ideas.

-- Arizona Republic