on with the limbs of
winter back the old
barn shrouded in frost—
surrounded on all sides
by the dead tall grass bent
and absolutely singing so the
white-breasted bird would brave
the early dark. Horses left
years ago the low barbed
wire with “No Trespassing” sign
did little to keep our booted and young
bodies from hopping the fence.
a rope and a magpie, all kinds
of profane messages and decay.
I brought a boy I willed to
be my lover but loved the barn
more. I brought a gaggle of boys
but someone lit up in the hay.
I scoured through the hinges
alone and the crunch kept breath
cold, loud, humming.
I could take you there.
But one night the gaggle was
too loud and the barn groaned
like remembrance
like red,
we stayed put and blind.
She was all planks
the next morning– still home
for sparrow and cat but
laying flat and without
hope of rising.
If I could take you there, you
would have cried it. Your tall
windy limbs holding fast to the
wavering walls, your
nutmegged breath ghosting pale
in the rotting hay.
So few things of mine you cannot
know– this one a new eye for all dead and bright.
This poem is by D(anielle), not me! Those of you who know her, know she is also a lover of poetry. Those of you who don’t… she does! She recently published this poem and a handful of other poems over at danielleisbell.org. It would be a shame to miss them.
This poem sticks out to me because despite never living in an agrarian area, barns have a way of following me. My mom loves them for paintings, my dad loves them for structure and cool old wood, my workplace has a barn… I found horseshoes in the yard growing up because a stable had burned before we moved in, and on the corner near where we lived many people knew it by a horse that had previously roamed the land (again, before we moved in).
A barn is still a barn, even without functioning as one. Even without a stablemate.
This poem is a great reflection on a place and the times spent there. It conjures up wisps of memory and invites you to walk through them while encouraging you to replace the characters with those from your own life, barns from your own life.
“the barn groaned
like remembrance
like red,
we stayed put and blind.”