THE BARN DOORS

The barn doors swing
with the wind. Crash!
Back and forth. Slap!
Again. Slam! Again. Again.
The tenants of my parents’ house
are home. The kids fed
their show calf,
walking back and forth
through those doors,
and left them open.

Slap! My father used to say,
“My shadow on this place
is worth ten bucks a day,
making his point while, as usual
seriously undervaluing himself.
Each slam loosens the bolts
a little more. Inside my house
I’m a quarter mile away
from those barn doors.
But in the sound of their destruction,
I hear my father’s voice.

Trying to ignore him, I sip tea
from a bone china cup, the last
of my grandmother’s set.
She taught me to love tea
as we celebrated the end
of a work day, happily tired
because no job was left undone.

Grandmother and father.
I grab hammer, wrench, nails
and head for the barn.
Their shadows trail behind,
muttering and nodding.

                                       by Linda M. Hasselstrom