This is a sod built barn about two miles from where I grew up. The tin is the same tin that I remember from my childhood.

 I used to walk from our farm over to the Cook’s house, just before this spot along the road. Terry Cook was my first boyfriend and we’d walk the pastures and down to the spring, but for whatever reason, we never walked up to this barn. One spring day as we walked along a limestone ridge in the pasture, we passed a rattlesnake den before we even realized it was there – the snakes still winter-groggy and warming themselves in the sun. We backed up, one step at a time.

But we never walked up to the sod barn. It’s one of those mysteries that live quietly in the back country of Kansas. Someone’s farm. Someone’s history and someone’s ghosts. I don’t know who built it and I don’t know what’s inside.

And even after all these years, when I stop to look at it before I drive on over the hill and down the other side to look at the new bridge the county built, I’ve not crawled over the fence to explore. But then, Terry’s gone too, and I’m rarely as brave by myself as I am with a compadre. So I drive on and look at the road on the other side of the hill. It’s old too.

But in early summer, after a rain, the land breathes new again.