The Crow Flies At Day, Dawn, a Poem for Joel

The life of a scarecrow stands on humble prospects, on november fields reaped and hollow,.. It hangs like sallow, scrap parchment skin on leftover straw that feeds nothing... It hangs on a stick beneath a weak sun, pale, and uncaring... And for all this...this existence of suffering...it is hardly a scare... But even God's most pathetic creatures know some consolation—the scarecrow is no different, the scarecrow has a friend... Can you conceive the silhouette of irony waiting with itself in the dark rows of night? Can you convince a ruby-innocent child that there is great friendship between scarecrows and crows? Indeed, there is. For better or worse, they share a name—almost—they are a perfect rhyme; the crow finds gentle frayed shoulders to land on, a sympathetic listener to its unpopular song, the only man left unsullied by sin, the only man without pride or airs who isn't dead... And come dawn, the crow kisses the brainless one's cheek where in dreams tears might be, and spreads his oily wings, and grants scarecrow a flying vision of peace.