He spent his days around this barn, moving animals, feed, equipment, ropes and buckets, hay and water, all in or out of the barn. No two days were alike, no two days that different.
The paint, the grass, the roofing, the tin, the nails were pulled or placed time and again, to keep the walls and the roof in place, and protect those things inside.
Days and nights became one, through the darkness you could see his body, taking care, carrying, lifting, raking, petting, tending to the daily chores that brought them here. Through mud and rain, sunshine and morbid heat, early mornings or late night.
Those days have passed, the barns’ still there, but he is gone, they are gone, lives that were spent caring and keeping, are now spent beneath the grass.
Time has not stopped, but the essence of time has changed, for money, for life, for family who no longer wanted or no longer cared for the way of life, tending to the barn. The sign is, what was, and in time will be gone.
Ralph Peck
Photo by Tiffany Odom
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