Depending on the Storm

A March sun, cold and bright and hard,
maker of shadows, of raw colors,
of promises not yet kept.

The barn still stands
after a decade and a half of abandonment.
The bones still good. The glass gone,
broken out of windows, a path
for birds and wind,
open to curious bystanders and wanderers,
the clapboard devoid of paint or pretense.
Here and there, board rot.
From a distance, it is hard to tell.

The slate roof does not bow.
Row after row of shingles stand firm
and the farmer who owns this not quite relic
stores his hay and cows here at night
and through the winter. And imperfect abode,
on the cusp of recreation or collapse,
a few years left in the face of neglect,
or not, depending on the storm.

About this poem

“I don’t need faith.” “I don’t need people.””I don’t need love.” I hear these all the time by people hurt, abandoned, and neglected by all the things that are not “needed”. And maybe not. Certainly, we can get along for a long time without them. Until the perfect storm hits.

Or about barns.

Tom