Brightest wood and tin, the cover of time, has bent the rules and maintained its harrowed beauty outside, without all of its trimmings.
Many hot summers were spent, drawing the horses in, pulling the dead hard straps from them, wrapping each one with a wet blanket, and mustering out their bucket of oats and bale of hay.
Winter consumed them, but not those who stood and kept vigil in the barn, who, wrapped with a good dry blanket, two to a stall, could keep each other warm in the night. They would watch the smoke of each others breath move and let them know they were living.
Buckets and barrels sought a home in its walls, drawers of leather, broken reins, bits of little pieces and a little bit of love, still show through this one hundred and twenty year piece.
Kept and worried on by those whose time has passed, it stands and watches, with squinting eyes, as life carries on.
Ralph E Peck
Photograph by Charlyn Parker
Western Arkansas
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