After my walk I go to the little building we call a barn that isn't a barn at all, it's two rooms, one down, one up, painted floors with stairs and windows to the trees, no heat, which on a day like this nobody needs, the sun pours through a skylight and bathes the walls we painted brightly, and it's only steps to the door of the house across the yard, but it has double doors, like a barn, and a very long desk my brother built us – fits just right – plenty of places to sit and silence, which almost feels like loneliness, (because will anyone ever find me here, and what's going on over there, anyway, what am I missing?) even though I came here to be undisturbed, fishing for a way to get a poem, first draft, but then, and then his voice calls up still looking for me after all these years, through the open windows, hello? are you busy? and, yes, I am in the first draft of what I hope, but I say yes, and he climbs with his coffee and breakfast sandwich and I half write half talk half listen while he chews and sits and this is how a marriage is like a tree in leaves of flames, October light.

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2017