The Barn

Cracks of sunlight flare

between weather-roughed boards

to define an interior, abandoned now,

that still preserves the sweet smell

of horses, the remembered sound

of them, the stomp and shake

of them, their nickerings

and soft exhalations—even

the misaligned bridles angled

on pegs these many years.  Oh, barn,

inconsequent and indestructible,

who says we need physics

to understand time travel?  

Years After

Years after

my father died,
I was remembering him

one January night
when I saw what

I took to be

his soul

drift from the chimney

and hover

like a gray scarf

over the hearth.   

I couldn't  

not reach for it. 

If he'd stayed

I would have told you this sooner.

Heddy Reid is the author of A Far Cry, a chapbook of poems, and The Soul in Balance, a book of selected meditations paired with photographs of the Washington Cathedral. Her work has been published in Innisfree, Passager, Poet Lore, and The Southern Review, as well as several anthologies.  Heddy has taught poetry to adults and serves on the Poetry Board of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.