The Scare Crow That I Am

the Scare Crow that I am

dead cornstalks hanging there in scattered rows
like broken mummified men
like me........
but they have ancient cornfields in which to stand
I have no place to be and no reason to exist

surveying the neglected countryside of my youth
and the forgotten fields that once were fruitful
I feel like the aftermath of a hurricane
and a desecrated cemetery

hopelessness walks around me in the mist
the cold gray morning whispers like a lover
who no longer loves but despises
and I try to cry but cannot well up tears
the ducts are as dry as the heart

why do we always run home
 when our souls are snapped in two?
do we think we'll find ourselves there 
in those broken windows, those cobwebs,
those untended gardens and uninhabited pastures?

I couldn't wait to leave those hills and valleys
to run to the city and to the fulfillment of my dreams
I couldn't wait to leave home, to leave behind  
humiliations, real and imagined, to search for proud pursuits
and now this, the last straw on my humbled back:

home does not exist anymore, neither here nor there
the once green cornfields are now only haunting memories
like the love of my true love lost in the war of life
I walk into the corn rows and pose myself among 
the decaying stalks like the scarecrow that I am


and hang my head when even the crows laugh at my pain.

©by Voo
March 7, 2005
 7:30 p.m.