Barns

1.

This barn stands silent.
It has stood for a hundred years or more.
Sometimes when the wind is strong,
its old joints speak.
Dust rises in shafts of sunlight.
Sun comes through cracks.
I sneeze.
Motes like gnats rise in clusters about me.

2.

A barn takes the form of tectonics.
It shrugs and creaks
both in wind and the weight of snow.
Cows and horses once domiciled here,
cats, hens, and pigeons.
The barnyard was where you fed
the chickens.

3.

Hay and straw were kept overhead
in lofts that were generally called “haymows."
You got there by climbing up ladders
or through loft doors
that opened your world to the horizon.
Such barns stood proudly for years
while turning gray
from their original rusty red;
or did that is,
if they didn't catch fire and burn
from hay self-combusting.

4.

Lightning rods and a weather vane
sprouted importantly from the roofs of barns.
From up there you could see to the nearest town,
maybe, ten or twelve miles away,
and could see parents on their way back home.

5.

Now most of the barns are gone
with farms and farming communities.
Some farms have become parts of cities
and towns where people work.
First haystacks, then the bale,
then hay rolled up in plastic:
no need for barns any more,
except for disused machines,
cats, sparrows, pigeons.

6.

There are no silos anymore, elevators only.
Farming is now a business.
No more the man
walking slowly behind the plow.
No dogs running out to bark.
No eggs hay-hidden.
No milk being squirted to kittens.
Sentimental, yes,
but not the farmer’s independence
that made work sweet.