Old Architecture and the Things You Cannot Measure

It is a working barn, just near the crest of the hill,
painted in colonial yellow
that is somehow both bright and muted at the same time.

A hundred years ago, no one would have notice it
but today, with the old barns collapsing every day,
it stands out. You see it, notice it, from a distance.

What it houses exactly does not matter
as much as the fact that it still stands.
That someone cares enough to do the maintenance
such things require.

It is work, maintenance.
At times, more work than starting anew,
a mix of vigilance and effort

all to preserve something less efficient
than the times clamour for. Less efficient,
at least in the things you can measure.

But the best of life is not a thing you can measure.
How do you measure a kiss?
The feel of your love pressed close?
How do you measure safety, respect, mattering?

Those things, like the old architecture
of two centuries back, take devotion,
another thing hard to measure,

A quiet toughness,
rarely recognized
until it is gone.

About this poem

A poem about love. About faith. About old buildings. Poetry is never about one thing.

The photograph was taken at the Hancock Shaker Village.

Tom