1.
Someone’s left the heavy door ajar.
Weathered, splintered, browned,
it’s slats and knots.
Barn swallows make use
of this quick breeze
to drop from high reaches-moss rafters –
through pale shafts of light.
The past lingers …
brood mares loose in their
stalls, some new calves
bunched farther back, chewing their udders.
Thick pollen swirls a-
mong the straw-dust
in eddies over
the floor’s aged boards.
2
Maybe someone’s come to chase the fox
snuffling through the feed
bin away with a stick.
Or shoo a pair of wild dogs
rummaging the piled tarps, moldered
and sour, for some lost thing to eat.
Or find the tramp, tired, blanketed
by heaps of white straw,
who’ll feign sleep if he’s left
a basin of fresh milk,
some biscuits or jerky.
As it happens, the barn
3
has grown weary of its kind, so much
auctioned, slaughtered, knocked
down, cut up for
kindling-so much fes-
tered so long in
piles and dank corners that
what little is left is ruin.
Burdock, bluestem, briar,
the wasted stalks waver and
bow in the doorway’s stale breeze. Sun up:
now whom do you hear,
out to the west
walking off whistling
his dark, slow tune?
Leave a Reply