memory

I walk into the old barn that was years ago built by hand. The floors are dusty from the dirt road leading in, blown in by the errant plains winds. I smile a bit as I look at the thick canvas floor. Remember when you had the courage to go through here barefoot? Blind to the danger of nails and the discomfort of grit between your toes. Now I shudder at the very thought. Right outside the door is the mulberry tree, where I would scramble up into the highest branches and watch, plucking sun-fattened berries from the boughs. I'm too big for that now, but tall enough to reach and take one anyway.

In the barn itself the smell of horses and hay is strong. There are no long faces poking their ways out of the stalls at the moment, as the horses are out at pasture, enjoying the nice spring day. There's what they always called the office. Breeding records, ancient giant television with only basic cable, a bed, horse and bull skulls hanging, staring ominously from the walls, the latter's black horns twisting long and black over the wood stove. Adjacent had a room filled with old, rusting equipment that was once all lost on me, back then I only knew it as where the spiders made their homes. The place, even in its silence, seems to carry the echo of some old talk radio show. Not that I ever understood a word of it.

A hallway to the right, leading to the hay room. Exactly what it sounds like. Quite the playplace for a small child, feeling like she was on top of the world as she made her way up the precarious stacked bales, hands red and scuffed but their body never caring. Underneath were the little tunnels where kittens were born.

I walk past more stalls and make my way to the field itself. No crops grow here, it is only for the horses. The great, brown, warm-eyed creatures notice me and wander up, nostrils flaring and snorting out a greeting. I smile and gather up a few dandelions, which they take eagerly. I climb my way over the fence and past them, unafraid, towards the pond. It's so quiet out here, the air fresh with the slight accent of algae. The waters were stocked with bluegill, as I remembered from those days of sitting by the water's edge on hot summers, holding out simple bamboo fishing poles waiting for a bite. Catch and release.

Ah, but the woods just beyond held the greatest mysteries. Rarely did I venture very far inside, but this time I am feeling bold. It's quiet, nothing but shafts of sunlight through the trees making their marks, birds chirping songs and warnings to each other from overhead. I find bones, a horse that long ago came out here to die, its body picked clean by the crows and foxes and vultures. More still, a deer taken down by dogs or coyotes, long ago eaten.

I reach the patch where the temperature drops and feel the chill. Standard woodland fact, that thick tree cover blocks the warmth of the sun, but when I was young it was a genuine mystery.

I've seen enough by this point, and start to make my way back from being beautifully lost. Circling around, I come to the east side of the fence, near the small flower gardens and rocky driveway. This is where everyone would sit and socialize, picnic tables and chairs of all sorts, by a play area that was as good as any park I had known, all made by hand. Once again, I was too big for any of the equipment, but the memories, the appreciation, was there nonetheless.

But the place is empty now. Not without life, but it holds a silence to it.

Because it is a place that, as far as I can control, only exists in my mind.