The Light By the Potato Barn
Traveling through the dark, across the snowy plains,
The light by the potato barn faintly remains.
The monument at the Canadian border’s line,
A weathered plaque for a friendly girl is left behind.

In the deep channel of thought, I muse,
Of a County rich with memories to choose.
A passing remark in graffiti, a scar left in place,
It said rather rudely, “You’re taking up space.”

At the bomb testing site, the earth still hums,
where questions linger but no answer comes.
The air holds its breath, the well rising near,
Speaking of life, though death lingers here.

Through fields where the hay-cutters’ work is done,
Ritual to the soil, where lives toiled under the sun.
The gravedigger’s home, once brimming with cheer,
Now finds no voice for what remains here.

American Gothic stares, stark and cold,
It’s haunting where stories are no longer told.
Security sought is a fleeting refrain,
Like flickers of light on a snowy plain.

Notice what this poem refrains to claim—
The scars, the losses, the flicker of flame.
The light by the potato barn dims with the night,
As silence settles, and wrongs rewrite.

Traveling through the dark, the scars remain,
At the un-national monument on the border’s plain.
Across the County, allegiances sway,
Contention and discontent mark the day.

A passing remark, the friendly girl wasn’t wrong,
When she said, “We’ve been here all along.”
For this life, a message we send to defend,
A hope that begins where the wounded mend.

Monuments rise for the friendly girl’s name,
A tribute to truths, we’ve honored the same.
Atavism stirs as we wake with the dawn,
waking to truths we thought were long gone.