The Square Shadow

A shadow leans from the fence's corner post
touching a man stooping near the creek.
Other shadows net a mountain range,
throw dark pools and reaching, agile fingers
over its face and steep, obscure contours.
The man picks up a bucket full of stones.
He is building a barn of pickings from brown clay,
now trundles on his tractor past three fencelines
through the thistle of the fallow paddocks,
stopping under a gum that casts thin shade.
He pauses, then begins to pile a barrow
with more shards and shavings, in the sun.
The grass stretches to paddocks then to forests.
He will build for years, and the square shadow
of his work will lean into his body,
darker and more embedded every season.