Sagging Shoulders

Sagging Shoulders            

By John W. Vander Velden

 

With sagging shoulders that had so willingly borne loads, the structure stands long abandoned.  Once the tumbled down barn was the pride of those that had moved within the walls that now deteriorate.  How heavy, the great beams, hewed by hand, fitted together by skill, and hefted skyward by shear will of many men, the framework designed to stand for all time.  The number uncountable of the nails that fastened its skin of broad planks to that skeleton.  Joy filled the faces of those that first set eyes upon the structure that would be the center of their lives.  When only the aroma of new lumber  filled its grand space.  But that was long ago.  The days when a man carried a lantern into its heart before the dawns first light are long forgotten.  Summers when farmer, with great hooks, team and rope, filled the mow, a history remembered only by bent old men.  How many times had men with ladder and brush dressed the barn in garments of red trimmed in white?  Now the weathered wood show only traces of faded blotches too stubborn to vanish.  Wood shakes that had covered the mammoth roof, shielding man and beast from driving rains, lay scattered and broken upon the mow floor among forgotten rotting hay.  Only the foolish venture within the shadows and among the shafts of light flowing through broken panes.  Summer’s storms and winter’s fury did not devastate the once proud monument.  Changes called progress eliminated the grand building’s usefulness.  Over time what had once been the pulsing heart of the farm’s life became ignored -- just an old building.  No, it was not the heavy burdens willingly carried that caused its shoulders to sag -- but people that no longer needed or cared.

Part of this nation’s history stands crumbling along that country road, a symbol of what was and is no more – all that remain are the sagging shoulders of the abandoned barn.

(327 Words)