Francis's Barn

Ricardo Sternberg

For Paul & Harriet

Laudie Waples, a neighbor, owns the barn
but with husband dead and the livestock gone
her farm is up for sale:
the barn is his for use in winter.

The whole of winter he keeps the herd inside;
each held in place by a metal yoke.

Today the barn is empty, humid, huge.

Disturbed by voices, barn swallows fly
zig-zags about the nave. Nave?
Empty, the barn is a church:
shafts of light on plaster walls,
rows of stalls like narrow, private pews.

Francis tells us of lightning-
how, when it strikes the barn,
the current moves through the yokes
dropping the herd, stunned, to their knees;
and once, when he himself was struck,
how the bucket flew from his hands
and a column of milk rose in the air.