The forty-niner,
finding a forest
more malleable than gold,
settled this hilltop,
cut his lumber,
built this barn
next to a sapling redwood.
The stage coach stopped,
water for the horses,
twice a day.
Hand-hewn timbers
now sag.
Doors hang off hinges.
Glass windows, added later,
are shattered.
Square nails become rust.
The miner, dust.
Generations of bats, owls,
mice-hunting cats
now gone.
Moss covers what remains
of the roof
after the goat
ate shingles.
Walls would fall,
leaning downhill
if not buttressed
by the redwood tree
which will stand
roots still spreading
to brace these decaying planks
without effort
for another, oh say,
ten centuries
or so.
from Son of a Poet
© Copyright 1986 and 1999 by Joe Cottonwood