Vanishing Barn

The man's barn is the man's worth The cedar's pungence, the mow and the light These legacies of line and scale Thatch, shingle, gable and slate From soil to shelter, from timber, honey coloured Rubbings from hay and straw, now lichen covered, This rhythm of the bays, That faint hickory creak, Those fiddler tunes, In rafters where love once hid. The vanishing barn, its simplicity bends slowly, Geometry ages on the brace, Beams hugged by dowels of oak Where cobwebbed corners once held a song. Quebec, Chester County, the pilgrim's grip, The threshing floor, between cows and calf, came his step On the echo of pigeons wings, Beauty had this space - Porch whispers, silence shape, The earthy smell of harvests long past.

Paul Kloppenborg

Copyright © 1999 Paul Kloppenborg

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