I’m liking the name, Scarecrow, and the way my spine
roots me to the earth; some of me Tree, nailed
to its DNA the old spade of my arms, shoulders;
my first thought the last straw as rain christens me.
I am girl, maybe boy, under this stuffed shirt,
this stove-pipe hat; field poet, dirt-poor, solo.

But I scare them, martyred between cloud and soil,
aye, they keep their distance; and my verse moves
from the wormy draft at my root, by way of the wren-heart
coy in my suit, to thunder, verb, lightning, noun,
the lit-up image of a fleeing hare. Wild planet.
I compose this whole whirled world and I am it.