With an apology of sorts to Jim, whose country life is real. I was just a 'wannabe'.


Fall Chores

Yesterday the last of the hay
Heaved high into the loft
And all day long gold motes
And sweet scent hung in the air
And made beams of Fall light
That held the old loft floor high
Over fresh straw-strewn ground.

Gnawed and splintered stall rails
Pulled down and old oak made new
For the skittish gelding and goats,
New feed troughs screwed tight,
Bags of sweetgrain piled on pallets
And covered with new canvas,
Windows re-glazed and sealed,
Storm-bent tin roof panels replaced.
All more ready for winter than I.

And this morning, bursting from eaves
And darting from deep shadows
As I slide open the newly-greased door,
More sparrows than I could ever count
Whirl and wheel and shadow the sky
In common cry and choreographed chaos
And I am lifted up from this orderly barn
Unplanned and blessedly unprepared
Into the season of their wild abandon.




Poetry by countryfog
Read 400 times
Written on 2010-12-23 at 15:32

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josephus The PoetBay support member heart!
As always reading your pieces leaves me full of the brightness of love and the warmth of God in our lives.

Thanks for sharing your remarkable insights!

Joe
2010-12-25


Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Whatever you write about becomes amazingly tangible, barns, trains, graves. I enjoyed the finish, the explosion of sparrows.
2010-12-24



Certainly no need to apologize for this, which has the ring of truth and a sense of generations. I am a first generation country boy, and I have missed the sense of feeling the handle of an implement worn smooth by time and hard use; or, as in this case, the restoration of a barn, and few things on this planet have more soul than a barn.

Kudos for this beautifully written poem. It makes me appreciate what I often take for granted.
2010-12-24