Ol' Barn

Awesome work! You really have a great feel for incorporating strong visuals and emotion into your work. Love it!

I love the vivid picture this poem presents, while still allowing one to connect to your words with their own thoughts and memories. Thanks for sharing!

This poem is interesting. I had five random people read it this week and five different interpretations’. An ol, guy read it and it reminded him of his Kentucky home. Another piped up and said, “I get it. It’s about the deer.” The next one said it was about a single flower. One even said it must be about an old tree growing by the side of the road. And yes a couple actually thought it was about the ol’ barn. Maybe one day I will tell. Thanks for the comments for they always push me on to become a better writer.

The last person I gave it to started to cry and said it reminded her of her grandfather down in Alabama and her memory of him trying to get her to help him skin out a deer, she refused and he laughed. He had shot the deer from the back bedroom window. Gota love it.

Want a sixth interpretation? LOL

I love to take photos and write about old buildings as I imagine their "life" before being abandoned.

It reminds me of our farm in Ky and the old barns we had on our gravel roads. The deer became a problem after I had left for school and then marriage.

Maybe the poem is about you... :-) Anyway I enjoyed reading it very much.

It's my turn, it's my turn! LOL

Here's what it seems to say to me. It is about a girl that was loved, maybe in a romantic way, but she passed away and this person passes by her grave stone, with the grasses growing over it, again and again and again.

I hope that doesn't make me a morbid person.

Hey Lora, that thought is not morbid at all. I find beauty in your comments and a sense of comfort. The idea of a romantic love lost and a symbol, what ever that maybe, able to return to it again and again and again. Love your imagination. Maybe we have all been there at one time or another.

I love everyone's interpretation of this poem...which shows how creative it is..almost everyone "sees" something different in it.. for me - it brought back memories of time spent at my grandparent's house - they owned 5 acres and their neighbor had a barn much like this one described.. thanks for the fond remembrances!! :big thumbs up:

Aliens while creating a crop circle stumble across a scarecrow in the middle of a wheat field, decide to abduct it for further study believing it to be an indigenous lifeform. the deer looks on in disbelief, shakes it's head and thinks:"and they refer to us as dumb animals...sheesh!"

i once took a 500 question exam to be a corrections officer. it really wasn't 500 questions more like 166 or so posed in three or more different ways. One of the questions was:"who do you love more your mother or your father, it was noted that this question was required to be answered and not skipped. It was skipped...and i passed with flying colors, i was on the hiring list and met the day 2 physical requirements but was never hired (many applicants).

Rorschach test...complete.

I worked for the psychology dept in college one summer and took some of the tests to help grad students who decided I was too normal to be normal...lol

i took that test at a time when i was not "fine" and didn't know it aaaaand passed, what does that say?

I have a bachelor's degree in psychology, and I wouldn't want to be counseled by any of my peers. Thankfully, not all psychologists put too much stock in personality tests.

To Scott:


I have four dogs, one of them is the tiniest of them all (classic alpha male). He is a mini-daschund named nunzio, do not even attempt to turn nunzio onto his back to pet him, he will resist like his life depends on it. He will do it on his own from time to time if he feels comfortable and at ease enough. To expose his undersides instinctually makes him "vulnerable" to evisceration from attackers and predators, aggressors, etc. But over time he is becoming more and more trusting. So endearing, playful, relaxed...safe. His personality has really come to the fore upstaging all the other dogs effortlessly just by feeling safe and secure enough to be himself...unabashedly. This little dog taught me a lot, as well as unconditional love.

You have a great eye...but it didn't come cheap, nothing worth having does.
When you are ready, say exactly what you mean to say, you have a lot to teach that others' may benefit from and be Blessed by.
Your talents, your gifts are not your own, they are on loan and are meant to be shared.
Don't worry about what anyone might think in a worldly sense, you are no longer of 'the world', put it out there!...soft landings here amongst friends.
You are being called by name.

What does it mean when one can make a licensed psycologist forget what was supposed to be discussed? I think I have issues. That is why God is so necessary for me. Great visuals in this one. Loved it. Blessings

This poem is about my wife. It’s a love poem of sort I wrote for Valentines Day. After the death of our little boy our relationship has struggled, enduring grief. She is on the North side of the road, I on the gravel. The barbwire is the cutting stuff that keeps us apart. The deer are those who can cross which sometimes makes me angry.

In the end, if only I can see her beauty from the sideline that is enough. I will even come back again and again and again knowing I may never be able to cross the fence. For now this is how I cope. This is how I make sense of it all. The alternative is to take a picture and move on, something I am not willing to do.

The metaphor of the barn came from a memory down in Callaway County in rural Kentucky. After a morning hunt for deer I had to wait for my buddy to come pick me up. As I sat in the tall grass by the side of the barren country road I admired a small out building where cattle would feed. The picture is etched in my mind.

your very frank poignant commentary on the inspiration behind this poem paints a vivid picture that unless one does not have a pulse, would be very hard to forget and not be touched by.

"The picture is etched in my mind."
The beauty of your sharing these thoughts is...the pictures in your mind are so effectively conveyed that we can see "the picture" clearly through your eyes.

As a former Ky(Carlisle county) girl I can picture the scene.

Thank you for trusting us with your heart with your story and poem.

I can't imagine the pain you two have suffered, yet it is a good sign that you are not willing to give up. I will pray for healing to touch your hearts and bring back the strong bond and fellowship that you once had with your wife. The Lord made us to need each other (I don't know how many times it says to love one another in the Bible), and it is not good that we be alone. I sense a deep loneliness in your poem, so I will pray that the Lord wraps His arms around you and warms your wife's heart as well.

"Wild grass's smothering field stones
Stubborn with meaning
If only to please
The eye"

"Sprawling fields frame her-
Shape, flourishing in wheat
Waves of time swoop over her
Like the comb
From her mother"

"But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away"-Matthew 13:25

The barbed wire is the Church, within it "wheat and tares."
The observer is on the outside looking in, falsehoods surround the object of desire the observer is powerless to draw her into the Light of Truth for now. The deer can roam freely, the deer, hears without effort the gentle whisper we must work diligently to.

The observer is not outside...but in fact 'free' only can't see or hear it over the urgency of the cacophony of tumultuous pain that is distracting and luring the observer away from it, the deer represents the freedom you deny yourself that has already been Gifted to you. Free...but look back too long..."pillar of salt."

In times of tragedy the 'enemy' seizes the opportunity of weakness and frailty, like a lion that lurks in the tall grass and waits for the gazelle with a limp to wander by the watering hole.

Our God is a jealous God indeed!

Keep your eyes on God and trust in Him.

Your journey, has only just begun my friend, but already your trials and tribulations have touched many lives and it has by no means been in vain.

This interpretation is based on my own very personal experiences and past struggles and a message received, as this poem popped into my head during a radio sermon. I don't possess good retention so i knew it was a message because i saw every line of this piece overlayed throughout the message of the sermon and interwoven with it(imprinting). And my mind was no where near contemplating this at the time.