Poem : The Scarecrow

The scarecrow that once stood in the farmlands of my childhood
Now, only stands in the faded memories of my mind
I think of all the time that has gone by
Since the scarecrow towered above me
His croaker sack face stretched tight with hay stuffing
Dressed with ink, were his round scribbled-in eyes  
Expressionless, even when the black clouds rolled in from the skyline
And the wind blew wildly whipping his pie pans about
Strung together and tied to his gloves  
His arms were outstretched and nailed to a wooden cross
Much like the man who hung on the wall of our small southern church
In many churches so small, I saw as a child
For my father was a traveling preacher
In the back woods of Crosscreek, and Ellzey Florida
But he gave all that up for a life helping the common-man
Showing compassion to the ones on the bottom
Living his life through examples of kindness
Showing forgiveness to ones no one forgave
His words were much like a poets
A master of metaphors was he
They taught me to look back on the simple life of the scarecrow
To remember him standing season after season
When the tractor would come and plow the fields under
When the cold mornings of winter
Set frost on his old tattered cloths  
When the blazing days of summer rolled heat waves across
A sea of green tasseled-top corn all around him
When the windmill stood in the distance
Spinning its rust covered blades in the sky
When the plow points sat waiting to work in between seasons
In the shadows of the pole barn
While a spider weaved its web between its earth ripping claws
A time when I watched the green hummingbirds
Get drunk from red flowering nectar
And blue jays rob strings from my mother’s mop
Drying upright in the sun
For nest building had fallen upon them
Now as I scratch these words out on paper
I gaze out a window from a towering building
On the city that now covers those fields of the scarecrow
With concrete, and roadways, and steel cars of moving
I remember the wise words of my father
And apply them to the thoughts I write today
People will come and go in your life
Much like the seasons to the scarecrow
Jobs you work in your twenties
Probably won’t be in business in your forties
What’s meant to be, will be
You’re not going to stop that freight train of fate from falling upon you
No matter how much resistance you put up
People ,places, and times gone by are just that
Gone by
Like the memory of the scarecrow watching over his crop
But like him
We all should stand looking and awaiting the future
For it might be the best crop to come