To stand in a barn’s soft light, sniff its
rich, grainy smell, the paraphernalia
of rural toil about one, is to be
at the most open as to spiritual
chances — which these days perhaps isn’t
to say a great deal: the ‘personal
identity remains intact’ afterlife
options having become an excessive
stretch: but if what that leaves mainly is
some sort of cosmic oneness, no better
place for feeling such than a structure
which represents, as matter of simple
fact and season-to-season reality,
the human within the natural world.