Scarecrow

I put myself out to pasture      
some years back    
limbs draped in loose cotton  
a country bachelor  
planted upon someone else’s idea    
of natural providence.    
   
The dust that collected    
bound me to my lonely duty    
of deflecting the warm and the curious.    
   
I was vigilant, but hungered    
just out of reach of redemption  
and the sweetness  
that I watched bloom and ripen.  
Even the sky spun about  
and every living call stung like laughter  
that I could not share.  
   
But you    
   
have let me believe    
that I can make this earth move    
can part these clods from my feet and even if I fail    
not twenty feet down the field    
at least I fall    
in the act of rising.