Christopher Haywood Poet Quatrain

Whispering Gold and Straw-Stuffed Guard

The moon is a sickle of ivory white, 
Hanging low o'er the tassels of silk. 
The corn stalks shiver in the cool of the night, 
In a fog that is thick as the milk. 
"Old friend," breathes the row with a rustle of green, 
"Do you grow weary of standing so still? 
With your button-eye stare and your posture so lean, 
On the brow of this lonely, dark hill?"
The scarecrow creaks on his timbered spine, 
With a sigh made of sawdust and grain. 
"I watch for the shadow, the feather, the line, 
And the scent of the gathering rain. 
My coat is a rag that the north wind has torn, 
And my heart is a bundle of hay; 
But I live for the song of the ripening corn, 
At the end of a long, dusty day."
"We feel the crows landing," the field softy moans, 
"The pinch of the beak on the ear. 
We tremble deep down in our chlorophyll zones, 
Whenever the black wings are near. 
But you are the giant, the tattered and tall, 
With your arms stretching wide to the sky; 
You catch the first chill of the winterly squall, 
With a wink of your glass-beaded eye."
"I am but a ghost," the straw-man replies, 
"A hollow man stitched by a hand. 
But I love the gold light as the summer sun dies, 
And the way that you root in the sand. 
I’ll stand through the frost and the bite of the gale,
To keep every kernel from harm; 
Though my paint may be chipped and my burlap grow pale, 
I am the soul of the farm."
The wind dies away to a murmur of sleep, 
As the stars turn silver and blue. 
The secrets of seasons are hers now to keep,
And his to protect and see through. 
A nod of the tassel, a sway of the sleeve,
 In the quiet where shadows are spun; 
Two sentinels waiting for morning’s reprieve, 
Beneath the pale gaze of the sun.

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