The dying old barns

whispers his story still,

he has so many stories to tell,

I used to stop every other day

to photograph him,

and say tsk tsk about his hard times,

I used to visit old barns all the time,

but now he is only one old barn left

that I want to photograph.

He is a big ghostly thing on a country road,

the farmhouse behind him, empty and cold,

he is just an hour away,

the old barn has always whispered to me,

in sorrow and loneliness,

but one day soon it will not be

there at all, collapsed into a pile

of wood and timber,

a hole waiting to be filled.

Nobody wants his stories,

the weeping old barns have become cliches,

crying out to a fickle world that has never

been good at

preserving our  history. We have no memory,

or respect for the past,

there is not much money in it.

Every now and then, I am called to visit this old barn,

trapped  on the very edge of neglect and indifference,

I feel  badly,

he has always expected more of me,

to hear his stories of life and death and betrayal

and hope, and struggle and survival, and storms

and burning hear, and sweat and blood,

listen!, he whispers, listen to me!,

don’t forget me!,

I know you can hear me,

and I want to cry with him and say, look, I would

love to hear your story, and share it with the world,

but your time is long passed,

you vain and gullible old thing, we have to look  ahead,

not backwards,

and life moves on.

That’s just the way the world is,

for you and for me

You can’t see what you  are now, your are caught in

a different place.

You must know,

that nobody really cares to hear your story

any longer, and not for a long time,

you are just another pile of rotting wood along the roadside,

another lost and abandoned dream.

I can’t lead you on any longer,

one last photo, and

Peace to you, don’t look at me that way.