Barn

leaning on a rounded hill
waving to buzzards
what’s left of an old red
a-frame barn soars upward,
a cathedral of loss, a
shelter for mice and
possums and maybe
a rare tawny-eyed bobcat
whose kittens are tucked
under the rotting manger.
witness the gaping hayloft,
sweep your eyes down
to slovenly underbrush—
here is a thing like a jar
that makes the world
rise up and call out—
a skeletal frame to rein-in
undulating miles of sky
which would otherwise be
more than we could bear.