Down the lane we followed the blue sky with its white cotton candy clouds.
My Dad said, "Hop in! Let’s go for a drive." He drove his pick-up truck on the back roads towards the horizon.
Along the levees we drove. Talking about nothing, yet everything. I asked him if he could show me some old barns.
He knows the back-roads by their first name, and the history of each barn down to the weathered planks. Telling me who’s who, what is what, and details of the forgotten past.
We talked shop, "Almonds are in bloom this time of year. Walnuts are not… and what do you think about rice fields turning into orchards?"
Then he laughs and points, "Look over there. Silos with their heads in the clouds, and their hearts planted underground."
Under a sky of blue a barn sits counting the sheep overhead.
Dad told me tales about cows stepping out, and barns barely standing, "There’s Ole Mr. Hank’s barn, he died a few years ago…"
On and on we drove as stories rolled.
Singing ballads, Faded blue truck do you know your way home?
Symbolic barn church. Sacred ground I do kiss. Dad feels good today. Abundant harvest.
Photos: The colors of rice green, grey paved back roads, toiled dirt, dry rice stuble, tint of pink almond blossoms and the ever changing sky. Places I call home.
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