17 mayo 2008: Gone

the ramshackle barn
favoring to a side, like a limping dog
scant memories of the once red
traces of straw bales, rotted twists of twine
dust spitting glints through unintended slats
striped parallel suncasts

"once here
where
leaping from the mow
the wind
knocked out,
a fall,
that or laughing"

here i'd abide rather
not the shining remodeled kitchen
stainless country oven
upkept
after hired carpenters
spent months honing a sheen

she and i agree
it is the fallen
spirits

we would sustain
and preserve

nothing new
nothing

ourselves inherited a like vision
gardeners, celebrants of decay
always the intoxicating smell of the gone
filling our lungs
in that quick, and deep, intake
regaining breath

to fall again
and again

outside the clean, the new, the never