Weathering

If your barn goes down in a high wind
and you come back in the spring
to find its planks already deep in weeds,
then the phlox come up between the timbers
and stray cats raise their endless litters
under the beams.
And bindweed moves in,
and the manic eye-surgeon over-lasers your eye,
until you are like the barn,
listing and leaning toward collapse.
The land has grown into your veins
and it pulls you under.
Some primitive thing goes with you;
moment by moment in the half-dark,
the shapes of things,
the meaningless puzzle,
fitting together like the galaxies flying apart.

Copyright © 2004 Ruth Stone All rights reserved
from In the Dark
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission