We appreciate what we have after we no longer have it
threshold of the haymow erected when grandpa was little.
The wind moans and groans through the cracks in the boards
and the door swings and bangs on its rusted hinge.
The smell of hay baled in summer and stacked for winter
from floor to rafters to a peekaboo window
the fun of seeing without being seen. But there—
A cache of eggs in a nest of straw.
Brown and warm, chocolate and tan, free-to-range hens
Who like
to sit on their eggs and murmur contentment under
A roof tight and secure.
Puffed-up doves preen in the rafters.
One flies
overhead, east to west, the length of day.
Temperatures
drop, wind rifts through the cracks
The sound of dripping eaves,
November
gale come calling.
But the
mow stays dry, a refuge from the farm on the farm.
I write in here. If I were a bird I’d nest in here.
If I were an owl, I’d sleep in here.
If I were a building, I would be like this.
A nosy cat is reading my diary and licking my thumb.
Does
she have a batch of kittens curled in a ball
In grandpa’s hay mow?
A melodic song from high in the rafters
Stirs the hair on my arm.
No common
sparrow this trilling song. Doves don’t mind
Our looking
at them but somewhere up there—
Where no light can shine, nor eye can see
Perches an uncommon bird to warble her song.
My breath freezes in frame as a cat on the prowl
But this diminutive bird
Compelled to sing of the day
Remains hidden from me.
For dVerse, a poem about a building that was more than a building to me.