Most of the stuff is gone now,
Four dump trucks full —
The girls’ old school papers and kindergarten pottery projects,
Old wire fencing, rusty and bent,
Scraps of wood you might possibly have used some day.

Some items escaped the purge —
An old dial telephone with an external bell,
A dirt-encrusted bottle of harness dressing,
Horseshoes, a small two-handled saw and a broken plow shaft,
A yellowed Valvoline calendar pinned askew on the wall —
April 1948.

But you are still here —
Beams you sistered, new wood against old,
Hardwoods you might have turned into tables and stools,
SKIL saw and yard machines, some tame enough for me to use,
Stairs you built to the loft,
Held in place, counterbalanced with gym weights
which clatter into lopsided metal trash cans
when the stairs rise from the barn floor.

Not everything is old.
Fresh bat guano dots the floor, like rice thrown out for threshing,
Just dead bugs, digested, eliminated,
fertilizer for the garden.

You are gone — but you are here.
This was your space.