At the End of an Old Logging Road

The old barn is taking its time to fall,
may outlast my trespassing eyes.
The road to this ruin is lined with leaning
warning signs long after logging trucks
carried off the last of the fallen.

Termites are slow eaters, but the barn
morphs to toothpicks and sawdust,
wobbling and slowly blowing away.
Somehow the ruin will last another storm.

More than the barn-raisers, now gone on,
the barn holds to its place. Oak sills
can only settle toward the ground to rejoin
their roots. In this long lowering, bodies built
from trees plow the same field as men,
all sinking down into the same earth
that raised them up.

–Robert S. King

15 thoughts on “At the End of an Old Logging Road”

Philip Corley June 4, 2016 at 11:26 am

I love the image you put together here with the run down barn. This was a joy to read.

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Gaby Bedetti June 4, 2016 at 2:42 pm

Gosh, Robert, I think I’ll never forget how the oak sills rejoined their roots, yet how “raised” comes after “sinking” to end the poem.

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Dennis Preston June 4, 2016 at 2:49 pm

I too, love the imagery. This is a wonderful poem!

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Robert S. King June 4, 2016 at 4:46 pm

Thanks to all for the comments

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Rudy Thomas June 5, 2016 at 5:48 pm

This poem is complete; it comes full circle.

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Karen George June 7, 2016 at 9:51 am

Lovely poem. Especially like the line “The road to this ruin is lined with leaning.”–the repeated sounds and image!

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