American Pastoral

Some say a landscape is made up of fields and hay.
Somewhere, a horse and wagon; a barn with a rusted roof.

                 Under the rusted roof, an owl hoots; flies bother the horse.
                 A scarecrow is supposed to frighten creatures in the wild.

The scarecrow doesn't frighten squirrels or foxes or mice.
Something always manages to come through the cracks.

                 A snake can come through the cracks. Rainwater. Mud.
                 Sometimes you find a long sheath lit with old scales.

A long sheath lit with old scales, abandoned in the barn.
No blood, no scar: no one can tell how it manages this change.

                  Does blood or a scar guarantee the change is real?
                  So much grain to separate from chaff. Dust everywhere.

Separate the grain from chaff. Dust everywhere.
Remember the landscape made of fields and hay.

                 

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