The voices, long since gone,
but he remembers.

He waits for new, cheeful voices and knows
none will ever come.
To them he is dead.
A memr'y of years past.

Old and forgotten.
Left to house mice and birds.
Left to rot and fall away.
Un-painted and uncared for.

The old barn sighs again
and settles down for a long wait.

Suzanne Wilson Ruckman, age 14
1979