“Prolonged exposure to nature gives one
a sort of grammatica pardo, a wisdom of the soil.”
Jim Harrison
the city dweller with little of knowledge of the soil
senses it is more than earthy epithets
but the scarecrow has a quite specific wisdom
weathered, windward, arms akimbo
pirouetting on a tip-toe pole
silently wishing he did not quite resemble
all the raggle-taggle homeless bums
befuddled into forgetting roots
hammered two feet down in earth
he sometimes catches sight of death
the smell, upwind, where tarry feathers in untidy bundles hang
corvids who did not scare so easily, not fooled
into thinking he was really flesh and blood
moles too, spread-eagled on the wire
grey dessicates too blind to see the burrowed jaws
and so between internment of seed and harvest
the scarecrow mounts guard on his battlefield
waging war on hungering souls, scattering fear like grapeshot
salvation in the grotesque
Joining Jilly with her pick of Jim Harrison poetry prompts on this Day 17 of 28 Days of Unreason
PoetryPix 