Even Barns

A sickle-moon hangs over
frozen barns, dormant lofts,
last season’s weedy-uprising
shallowly contained below floorboards
suspended inches above the ground.

There just isn’t a way to say goodbye.
Nothing can soften the inevitable—
no monument has the power to
replace the summer, stop the fall.

Winter snows, and snows—
The forecast? “Snow, piles of it.”
It will never stop snowing,
It will never stop pressing down,
slowly splintering the beams—

a generation of sagging barns
will hurl down, or slowly kneel
overnight. The morning surprises
every powerless onlooker,
arms aching to bear them up.

What remains will furrow into rows,
wintry white flags jutting quietly
from fields adjacent to churches.
What will they say about my father?
His eyes the color of glaciers.