You think there’s something there, 
in the old barn, its roof
sagging in the middle, one wall
collapsing inward.  
How is it that a ruin 
can arouse your curiosity?
You would not stable horses 
in such dilapidation or ask the cows
to spend even one night.
You know the risk you take now
setting your feet on rotting planks,
looking for you know not what.
The past, perhaps?  The year
that tractor, rusting in the corner,
last came to life and chugged off
filling the air with blue exhaust?  
The old things, the harness, 
black leather cracking,
pitchfork attached by spiders
to a post, and clumps of hay 
scattered everywhere – 
these have the dignity of age. 
Age has its privileges
and the privilege of collapsing barns 
could be this stillness. 
They have earned their independence, 
no longer need anything except
to sit with broken tools in the gathering dust,
feeling no obligation
to satisfy anyone’s curiosity.
                        

My walk this morning
was in a town of empty houses,
forgotten until summer when 
they pack the car and arrive,
the parents and children, 
to fill the rooms.
Caretakers will turn the water on,
pull the sheets off furniture
where no one sits now this January 
when I am filled with the emptiness of houses, 
cupboards where dishes do not feel
a human hand, closets full of
empty shirts and dresses, rooms 
full of silence, air cold, unmoving. 
It finds me, this emptiness, 
I am drawn to it
in sympathy with the houses 
defenseless now, 
and full of winter.