I spotted this barn five years ago sitting proudly off a busy highway in Arlington, Vt., and I have been photographing it ever since. It is an abandoned barn, not used in anyone’s modern memory. It is returning to nature, a powerful thing to see. The old barns are going away, they are going home, there is no used for them any longer, their time is passed. This is neither sad nor happy to me, is the nature of the world. The old barns have no wish, I think, to hang around and be discarded, nor can I imaging them wishing to die without purpose or dignity. This barn is melding into the trees around it, gradually becoming indistinguishable from them, a very dignified end for an old barn. One day it will not be possible to tell the trees from the old barn.

I am happy to see this beautiful thing meet so soft and peaceful and gradual an end, free from the wrecker’s ball or the bulldozer’s deprivations. The old barns know what humans are like, what they do, how little loyalty or memory we have. No one fights to save old barns, they would be laughed right out of the developer’s offices. Godspeed to you, noble thing, go at your own pace in your own gracious and silent way..