For over a century, this rugged barn stood.

Lashing rains, howling winds, deepening snows it withstood.

I’d ask it to tell what it’s seen, if I could.

And I know if its walls had a voice that it would.

 

Even new, it was fashioned with recycled beams –

hand-hewn for an earlier barn, it would seem.

From timber so sturdy, by hands strong and true,

atop walls of thick granite and capstones it grew.

 

Then, it stood and it served beneath sheltering rafters

a family, its stock, and then those who came after.

But changes and hard times lead onto neglect;

And the freeze-and-thaw cycle in Maine, I suspect,

 

took its toll on the weathered and weary old place.

Yet it stood. As it sagged.  And it waited with Grace.

It waited for someone to come who would see, 

beneath its worn visage, what it used to be.

He stepped from his truck and sighed as he squatted,

gazing up at old boards, wind-smoothed but not rotted,

“She’s way out of plumb, but her timber frame’s strong.

Her foundation’s worth saving. It won’t take me long.

“So many these days are falling to ruin.

Too many these days don’t know what they’re doing.

They demolish the old ones, burn ‘em down to the ground.

They can’t see what I see when I look around.”

 

So I ask what he sees and he stands and explains,

his voice deep and rich, his imagery plain …

“I see what’s before me, a broken down shell;

And, I hear the sweet tales only old things can tell.”

At this, his eyes soften and though he’s standing here in my yard beside me, he’s no longer with me.  He’s looking, yet no longer seeing with his eyes.  His tone and the rhythm of his words shift, pulling me into a sort of dreamscape so that I can see what he’s seeing, hear what he’s hearing, feel what he’s feeling.  

“… I see windows with broken panes and twisted frames gape out into a summer night. 

… I see twinkling shards of glass buried in the dirt, hidden in the grass, glinting in the afternoon sun.

… I see a lone farmer. Having rolled it slowly open, he stands looking out the back door. Sundown hours away yet. Bone tired already. And yet, he smiles and whistles softly as he bends to his work.

… I feel the steamy heat of a cow’s breath on a winter morning, and hear the sagging girts groan under her weighty bulk.

… I hear chickens flap from loft to stall, sending dust motes swirling up into slanting shafts of light.

… I see snow piled high on a rusted roof and watch as gusts of bitter wind  send white spray right through the gaping cracks on the eastern wall.

… And I see her standing straight and square and tall.

Restored.

Renewed.

Reborn.”

I smile. I feel the old barn smiling too. Soon she’ll be whole again and I will call my family, friends, and neighbors. And old Henry from down the street will bring his fiddle and we’ll fill the barn with music and with love. We’ll have an old fashioned barn blessing. We’ll give thanks for the barn man — the one who came, the one who saw, the one who knew.