The Old Barn in Battle Ground

Poetry

photo by the author

I drove past that old barn every day
on my way to the big box store
where I’d spend my hours
cultivating heel spurs.

It sat out there in the flat earth
of a farm tilled field
long grown up with waving weeds,
its slattern roof exposing its bones

against the backdrop of green hills,
and a sky smeared with light.
A silo gleamed like a rocket nearby,
ready to be launched toward Mars,

if you ignored the rust in its ridges.
The calm serenity of this place
was so picturesque, it seemed torn
from a photo album found

in an abandoned house,
on the outskirts of a ghost town
where the Geiger counter ticks
and the specters

of forgotten farmhands
linger in the shadows,
chewing stalks,
their eyes paranoid, yet sad.