Zach's Barn

I.

I asked Zach once, while helping him stack bales of hay, when he planned to tear that old barn down and build a new one. Well Zach just sort of grunted and kept throwing bales on the conveyor, without missing a beat. Like those old blue coveralls he wears everyday, Zach is kind of funny about that barn of his.

Now Zach and I own two of the last few family farms in this part of the county. You see his place borders mine and usually at the end of the day, on my way home from one of my leased fields, I drive by and see the old boy from the road, just standing there in the middle of that barn. I can’t tell you how many times now I’ve seen it; a dark figure in the setting sun with his hands on his hips, looking up into the rafters, I guess. He never seemed to notice my wave as I went by, so I quit waving at him. Now it isn’t that Zach’s not neighborly; he just always seems to me like he’s trying to remember something and can’t quite figure it out.

Zach’s place and mine were originally part of the same farm. The land had been split in two a couple generations ago. That barn had been part of the old farm and was probably built in the mid 1800s; it’s seen many a better day. About a third of the roof is missing leaving the joists exposed to the weather. I can’t tell if it was ever painted; there’s not a trace of paint left anywhere on the sides. The siding that is left has long since weathered to a dull silver color that shows its age like an old widow’s hair. Much of that siding is gone so you can pretty much look right through the place. When we were inside stackin’ hay, the sun shown right through with picket fence like shadows that ran across the dirt and right up the hay bales stacked to the rafters. And then, there is the lean. That whole building leans at a skewed angle to the southeast, caused by decades of being pushed by winter storms. That’s why Zach doesn’t keep livestock in that barn anymore, or any of his equipment; only hay. Of course, it’s not like either of us keep much livestock or own much equipment these days anyway. The way that old barn leans, you know it kinda looks like it’s clawing at the earth, trying to cling to the spot where it was born, while time tries to push it aside.


II.

Standing inside I gaze up to
bald rafters, no longer able
to hold back the rain, or
the birds that come to roost
in these boney shadows of boards
bleached silver.
Broken only by arthritic black knots,
scars from another life,
with another purpose.