On his mind. How many times had he
Polished his ivory stump?
He deserved compassion.
He never learned how to sleep
As well as he might. On a mild
Blue day he once muttered:
"A storm's a brewin', Ishmael."
Michael Braude
SCARECROWS
The angel of death, fearing their stark geometry,
does not approach within striking distance–
explaining, if in part, why scarecrows do not die
but are dispatched, instead, by the angel of dismemberment.
A more compassionate, more lovingkind seraph,
he, too, obeys his superiors and carries out every order
but never to the point of incapacitating scarecrows
so as to forestall their ghosts returning to pastures
where, rain or shine, they once did sentry duty.
