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Tuesday, October 16, 2018

OLD MAN SHOUTING IN A BARN

by Tricia Knoll

Photo by the poet.


On any given fine fall day and this one was given
as gold on the hills, gold in sunshine after rain,
two young parents push a stroller for a baby
wearing a knit hat down a fine gravel road.

The sun might have known it would dip soon
to a sunset but in that moment’s radiance, I asked
what brought them to this Vermont farm
this afternoon. They had many choices

on a day as fine as this. Snow has already topped
a nearby mountain. My purple petunias took on frost
last night. These October days are numbered
more reluctantly than most days, double digiting.

They said they came to u-pick a pumpkin
for Halloween to carve the baby’s first ghost face.
Light a candle. A fine Sunday to get out. Then
they heard “the old man shouting in the barn.”

I nod to the baby, ask “Another first?”
They smile. Another first for sure.
Too bad the baby won’t remember this.
That old man is Bernie Sanders,

a rally three weeks before mid-terms.
The baby inherits our crisis of climate change
and on this fine day, the old man whipped us
up to cheering his amplified words in a barn.

The mother, father and little boy—who will soon
see his first ghost—go rolling up the road to a field
where they might find a perfect pumpkin,
harvest gold despite this fine summer’s drought.


Tricia Knoll attended the rally in a barn in rural Vermont for Democratic candidates in Vermont on Sunday, October 14. This is a true story that means whatever you think it does.