Scarecrows

On days like these

When we check the condition of our hearts

And look back across our scarecrow lives

At nervous futures scattered in fright,

It would have been so easy to be lonely,

Miming to the multiple images of ourselves

In the infinity of mirrors

To hide in the nearest designer crowd collection

Turn pages in a corner, flock to a hidden place

and narrate our tales of what might have been

to an audience heading for the doors.

But today, of all days, we celebrate

The accident of intersection

When two lives crossed paths and connected

When sentences starting apart end together

Where thoughts form in each other’s imaginings

And become real

No longer ragmen to scare the birds

Our eyes light up

When everyone else is looking down

Sentinel in the barren fields of the everyday

Whilst the sensual blood-reared touch of our hands

Transform the ragamuffin tatters of the past.

We have ploughed our disappointments into the fields

And scattered regret to the winds

The blackbirds and the crows now peck in other places

As we pulse to the beat of this heart-felt, heart longed-for day

and the flotsam, jetsam, floaters, jokers and pieces of hope

that used to adhere to our detritus dreams

and hodgepodge passions

No longer see straw men

But the beauty of lovers

Making hay while the sun shines.

 

Roy Stannard 14.2.13