Frost on aging angles

© 2008 Duncan Dwelle

Graton barn

Nature knows neither bounds nor limits to color, texture, and form.

Long before the hand of man traced his mind's eye across a blackened cave wall, every hue and shade imaginable had been splashed boldly on nature's canvas for a hundred million years or more.

Now man's work, so recently carved from trunk and cliff, returns gently from whence it came - beam and plank to humus soil, hinge and nail to flaked mineral rust.

© 2006 Duncan Dwelle

Hinge on faded red

© 2009 Duncan Dwelle

Hen house number one

© 2008 Duncan Dwelle

Lichen forest with fly

© 2007 Duncan Dwelle

Tamba's web

© 2007 Duncan Dwelle

Broken back
and slumping shoulders

Shades of powdered cocoa reflect so strongly in the late afternoon sun that this barn evoked in me the scent of fresh baked cake.

I waited nearly two hours for the last direct rays of a bright Autumn day. In the final seconds before gleam climbed off a strip of foreground grass, the near wall’s outward thrust fell into dramatic relief.

As is plain from the broken ridge pole and collapsing roof, this nineteenth century barn may not stand another decade. The door has splintered; soil and weeds drifting down the hill have pinned its foot; outward bending thrust adds a tipsy tilt.

Gravity and time will soon reclaim to the land planks and timbers which once grew from it. Long after nothing remains here but a mounded blackberry patch, friends of the Dehlinger Winery on School Hill Road will remember the distinctive colors and broken form of this simple barn.

© 2008 Duncan Dwelle

Cattle chute

Gathering storm over south Asia

© 2009 Duncan Dwelle