What’s the purpose of a scarecrow
in a cucumber patch? Does it provide
the young cucs a secure environment
to grow in cucdom? Does it provide the crows
a centering purpose for their lives? An idol
to worship? A place to gather, to rest their claws
before descending for the kill? Do they hang
out boasting of the cucumbers they’ve seen,
the delicacies they’ve sampled in gardens
of the world?
And what does the scarecrow think
of himself? Does he dream of gardens
beyond his own? Wish that he could select
a new jacket from L.L. Bean? Meet a mate
on an evening date? How would Facebook
change his boredom? Provide connectivity! He’d
give all the straw of one arm to be able to send
a single tweet. He knows. Yes, he knows
that at best he is the limit of one man’s imagination,
the fragments of cloth no longer valued.
His creator worked in the vacuum
of his culture. He was locked into mere craft
that replicates the images of his race, incarcerated
in stock icons. He will have to jimmy the lock, tunnel
beneath the cell, steal the the key to open rusty hinges
if he is to escape. Somehow, he’ll have to kindle
a new fire, burn every scarecrow, serrate his eyeballs,
pluck them out of the shared illusion of his race.
He must sacrifice more than a dozen crows
if he hopes to gain the edge, to broil his task
over the flame of artifice.
