Even in the Dark

You pass the barn each day.
It is solid, well cared for,
a working place, beautiful in its simplicity.

There are shadows on the windows
and you cannot see in.
Not nearly as transparent as you might expect.

The clapboard is freshly painted.
You can see it was never scraped before painting
and the scars of old paint flaking show themselves.
a strange mix of fresh paint and neglect.

The doorway is a dark hole.
There is no sign of what activities go on within.
It is always quiet.

At one end, vines tumble down the walls.
Beautiful murderers, left for some reason.
Perhaps for the owners of this barn,

beauty is more important than life.

You cannot question that choice.
Beauty brings tears to your eyes, the joyful kind.
Your children. The woman you love,

each moment with them, seeing in each face remnants
of their journeys, a beauty cameras cannot capture,
each moment worth your life.

Not that you plan to come undone any time soon.
Like the barn, there is life left in your bones.
and work to do inside your soul.

But should it all end now,
you have been surrounded by beauty beyond all expectation.
and blessed more with the ability to see it all,

even in the dark.

About this poem

At times I look back and say to myself, “What a tulmultuous life. How did I survive that?” But we do, don’t we? And it teaches us how to see…. the beautiful.

Tom