Waltz of the Scarecrow

That which gives often ... may receive nothing in return.
Do not be deceived by the words etched in stones.
Corn often grows taller than words;
words often grow taller than deeds.
The Scarecrow walks the fields at night through stalks
of corn taller than tales told by the fire.
We take our cache and fill silos; forty suns each field.
Mule shoes and wagons cut furrows in the black soil.
Geese feed in flocks as tendrils of wispy fog surrounds them.
Took one for our bellies and put it to spit and hot coals.
At dusk, we sit by the fire and drink our ale and watch as
women gather husk and stubble for rope.
A full moon rises high above, as a Scarecrow waltzes in
the clods of earth while mice search for seed and try
not to succumb to the Great Owl.
Starlings and ravens pick clean all the cob and stubble
as the sun warms our bones.
And within the breath of a wise man,
the sun falls and the scarecrow smiles once again.