I like the barns, their air of constancy,

their un-renovated geometry, their wooden deshabille,

that they have high hipped roofs — and windows
set without regard to symmetry — that they are unpainted,

the wood grey or brown with age, with parts that lean in

or out, that some are abandoned but endure, that one 
imagines the light inside — diffuse and murky

or the doors opening wide and a sudden shaft

of afternoon pouring like honey into dark tea
and the scent of hay and sweet apples on a high

shelf – the horse and cow smells fading,

old leather bridles, iron parts of farm machines,
sump oil, the ammonia of mice,

rough hessian sacks of chaff and bags

of chicken feed, that time here re-collects itself —
sleeps like Keat’s Autumn on the bales — and

does not wake but dreams of waisted frocks,

wide hips, foals, fiddles, harvest suppers.