Barn by Kathryn de Leon

A burst of sad sunlight has entered the barn,

reaching through the slates

the way heaven sometimes reaches

through clouds with bright fingers of glory

after a heavy storm.

Today is a storm that will never end.

The horses are quiet, motionless,

waiting for me in shadow

and the silence

of dust trapped in useless sun rays,

its countless specks moving

in a blind, purposeless dance,

a dance we all must perform one day.

The barn is hot.

It tells lies with its pungent smells

of life.

There is no life on this slow, broken day.

The afternoon sky is bleeding a false heaven

into the barn,

pouring warm, deep gold

onto the hay, onto my hands.

My grieving hands cannot feel it.

They cannot believe.

They have nothing to reach for.

There is no heaven today.

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Kathryn de Leon is from Los Angeles, California but has been living in England for ten years. She is a teacher and lived in Japan for six years teaching English to Japanese university students. Her poems have appeared in several magazines in the US including Calliope, Aaduna, and Black Fox, and in the UK, The Blue Nib, The Cabinet of Heed, morphrog 21, Hypnopomp, Poetry WivenhoePoems, and The High Window where she was the Featured American Poet.