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.