Abandoned Barn
Faded and void of cows
it slumps in the fallow field.
Long ago it lost
its need to stop the rain.
I enter by the broken door,
upsetting the mourning doves.
Their whistling twitter
resonates in the rafters.
I trip over a rusted plow
and fall upon a broken bale.
And consider my life: empty,
discarded, foundation cracked,
afraid of when I might cave in.
—Philip Venzke, Stevens Point
