The Museum of Now

There’s a busload of kids somewhere across the farm,
taking in the history and countryside like it is a foreign delight.
There is laughter and giggling and a struggling guide
trying to wrestle them into a place of learning.
I can imagine the scene and smile.

I can remember those days with my own kids.
I reveled in traveling with them and their friends,
no need to be part of their laughter, content
to simply be there and feel their energy and (mostly) joy.
All those memories simmer as the children move
further and further away, to distant corners of the farm,

leaving you here, on this simple wooden bench
that sits next to the open barn, a relic of Germany
five centuries ago, moved from its homeland
to this spot in the Virginia countryside.
You can smell the animals. Now and again you hear them.
Pigs. Cows. A randy rooster crying out his pride and place.

It is a museum for you too, different than for the children.
A museum of silence. And simplicity,
Not the stuff of postcards, but the stuff you remember most,
lost things, things that must be sought out in your world
where everything must be filled with more,
even sound, making sure we are full,

leaving no room
for the God who made you to fill you anew.
You sit. You listen for answered prayer.
There is room for it now in the silence
and you will sit here, alone, not lonely
and wait.

Somewhere in the distance the bus leaves
just as God arrives.

About this poem.

Inspired by a recent trip to the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia. A poem about listening. A poem about loss. A poem about the museum itself and what is worth preserving. A poem about prayers and solitude. Poetry is never about one thing.

Tom