My old, rickety barn
leans to one side
creaks when its door opens.
Its dark, cool,
spider-webbed interior,
a museum of memories
wet wool
warm sheep manure,
molasses-coated grain…
a ram snorting,
threatening to pummel,
to break out, to ram…
swallows swooping
eggs behind hay bales,
children dropping bales from the hayloft,
jumping from windows
into piles of hay…
their lives inspired by my immigrant great-grandparents –
Yiddish-speaking farmers
whose souls live on
in stories
and in old barns.