Farm of the Past

Artist's Gallery

The Old Barn

And now, a final poem I wrote last summer:

Farm of the Past

Surrounded by a surging sea of grain

The old farm, near deserted, stands alone;

Its silos rise like beacons o'er the plain

To hail once more the harvest season come.

The length'ning shadows of the setting sun

Fall softly on the quiet, rugged barn,

Whose rafters echo yet with lowing calls

Of milking cattle from those days long gone.

The sparrows dart to nests beneath the eaves,

Hard-working tools and rusty wagons rest;

Old musty bales of straw lie in the loft,

While memories of the farmer’s work creep past:

The empty cattle walk and milking stalls,

The barnyard overgrown with thorns and sticks,

Rough fences, iron gates, and on the wall,

A license plate from 1966.

 

The silos flank the barn like sentries tall,

Their worn stone walls have sheltered years of grain;

Strong pulleys, iron rods, and rusty pipes

May never handle fodder corn again.

 

How has the small-time farmer’s work been lost?

The harvest’s precious, priceless product gold?

Has industry completely swept the field

Of tractors, haystacks, milking herds of old?

 

Gone are the family farm work, faith, reward,

Though harvest time continues year by year;

Only the empty barns and tools preserve

The farmer’s hard-worked livelihood so dear.