Historical

.

Historic barn, Monroe County, Alabama: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, May 2010 (George F. Landegger Collection, Library of Congress)

The busy squirrel's earnings securely

or not so securely tucked away, the granary

full, the harvest in the barn:

so time remits all labours then; or was it

death, and were the labours

sorrows? It's not easy keeping this straight.

Still, time remits all difficulty, or was that death,

again? And if so, when? And if not now, why not?

Red Squirrel: photo by Reid2008, 2010

These are the questions the weary

farmer, the overtaxed squirrel ask

of fate. And what's fate saying?

If fate's saying anything, neither

farmer nor squirrel can make it out.

Barn, Upper Michigan: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, April 2007 (Library of Congress)

And what's religion saying? And science,

what about science, once religion

is dead? Is science

saying, after that long quarrel with one's gods,

text me

when you get the test results

okay? And then we'll talk

if we can recall all the words there were to say

the things one meant to say

before there ceased to be a reason to be saying

any of them. So now there are all these

messages, many indecipherable.

The messages are stored up in the barn.

Barn, Seven Mile House, near Reisertown, Baltimore County, Maryland: photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1937 (Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South, Library of Congress)

No one's been in there for years.

And furthermore squirrels couldn't care less

about science

or religion, tests

or gods. When you can't find your nuts

or the bank's foreclosing

it almost gets so nothing else seems to matter.

Barn, Route 66 near Staunton, Illinois: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, December 2004 (Library of Congress)