Entr'acte: a poem

Barn

I return to touch you after twenty years;
it is an intimate reunion.

I had forgotten the geologic topology
of your rough-cut skin, planks

all toothed and knotted as on the day
I nailed them, pink and bright

to close you in. Then
I was a hammer, determined

at the prospect of building.
Now, twenty years into the toolbox

I am a paintbrush, four-inch wide
and blubbery, sealing your hull again.

The red is wonderfully opaque
and flows easily to fill your weathered hide.

Up at the peak, one rung from the limit,
I cling one hand on a purlin

and I wonder if I’ll be at it
at seventy-four, reaching

from a top rung
to preserve what I made

or will I be some other tool then,
perhaps a measuring tape, perhaps a spade.

August 2008