Francis's Barn

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.