Poem of the Week
December 13 - 26, 2004
My dad and my grandfather built a small barn
Of woven-wire fencing and straw.
It would shelter two cows and their calves and a team
When wintertime weather turned raw.
Setting two rows of poles, they nailed wire to each row,
Then packed the straw down in-between.
That's how they constructed each one of the walls
That first summer when Dad turned thirteen.
For a roof they laid framework on top of the walls,
And topped it with straw and hog wire,
They sloped it southwest, so the snow would melt off.
Their one biggest worry was fire.
The advantage of having a barn made of straw
On the plains where fierce blizzards blew in
Was that livestock could nibble the walls in a storm,
When they finished their food in the bin.
--Jane Morton
Reprinted from Cowboy Poetry, Turning to Face the Wind by Jane Ambrose
Morton. Cowboy Miner Productions, Phoenix, AZ. Copyright (c) 2004, Jane
Ambrose Morton. Used with the author's permission
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