Hidden Geography Poem by Caroline Misner

A grey barn rises from the snow,
its naked boards bleached to ash,
the half-lid eye of its window, blind;
the other shuttered against the mist.
The wind has skinned the barn of paint.
It took decades to accomplish this.
It is here where I hide my geography;
it is here where despair is born.

An impotent sun throbs behind the clouds,
pale as the flesh of a peach.
It is a heart that has failed
though it tries beating gallantly
in the matutinal light
to bring this dying barn back to life.