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The ridgeline sways like a nag in her last days. Tar slips off the ruined roof like an avalanche off an Alp. Inside the old haymow, no one dares step on boards Made fragile as empty honeycombs by water That first seeped, then dripped, soon streamed, now simply pours Through pig-sized holes ripped open by neglect to the provident skies. But a floor below, butted into the hill like a basement, is another place Safe and calm and quiet as the sun, like you can be, Beaming through the bank of southern solid-framed windows Down a short alley of stanchions with their curved rails that kept cows separate To the still white-washed north wall, plumb and strong and regular As the progression of the seasons. From here, out windows to the west and east, The view sings across soft row and swale of fields To distant houses bobbing on a warm ocean of corn stubble And a low line of highway so far removed it is silent behind trees. The world passes by, and I, I could live here in this whitewashed splendor Serene as those long-gone cows chewing their cuds, Satisfied as a young farmer with his wife and his life among animals, Enchanted by the farm of our future, Nestled into the red barn of your heart. |
| Mary Mullen 4/5 & 4/6/96 |