Leave Taking

We have sold the old barn.
In the hayloft, light pocks
from missing shingle squares:
blue through the sky,
green through the leaves.
The barn slants,
infinitesimally each year,
toward the earth,
the red flaking from gray
and lavender sides
under the sun,
the warm tan wood
waiting inside, dimly protected
by that slowly sinking shell.
Thick stall boards
scallop up and down
where draft horses nibbled
before I was born,
before old used-up things
peopled the silent space
the horses left behind.
Most things leave:
the swallows every fall,
the sunshine every night.
In that great, empty loft,
in my sanctuary, I played
a wild song,
a Job song,
"Great Is Thy Faithfulness,"
as my father lay dying . . .
'most everything leaves.
 Almost.