Richard Wright

Richard Wright [symphonyspace]

from Richard Wright's Haiku: This Other World, "scarecrow" haiku:

“Oh, Mr. Scarecrow,

Stop waving your arms about

Like a foreigner!”

From the scarecrow’s sleeve

A tiny green leaf unfolds

On an oaken arm.

Late one winter night

I saw a skinny scarecrow

Gobbling slabs of meat.

The scarecrow’s old hat

Was flung by the winter wind

Into a graveyard.

Little boys tossing

Stones at a guilty scarecrow

In a snowy field.

Even the sparrows

Are attempting to thaw out

The frozen scarecrow.

When I turn about,

My shadow lies alongside

That of a scarecrow.

“Let’s make a scarecrow!”

But after we had made it,

Our field grew smaller.

Bedraggled scarecrow,

What a time you must have had

In last night’s rainstorm!

Scarecrow, who starved you,

Set you in that icy wind,

And then forgot you?

Don’t they make you sad,

Those wild geese winging southward,

O lonely scarecrow?

It is so hot that

The scarecrow has taken off

All his underwear!

Accidentally

Cut by the tip of the hoe,

The scarecrow shudders.

When the horse whinnies,

The scarecrow waves both his arms,

Asking for silence.

A skinny scarecrow

And its skinnier shadow

Fleeing a cold moon.

As my delegate,

The scarecrow looks pensively

Into spring moonlight.

A darting sparrow

Startles a skinny scarecrow

Back to watchfulness.

His task completed,

The scarecrow watches the truck

Leave loaded with corn.

The scarecrow’s big sleeves

Advertising in the sun:

Huge, red tomatoes!

On a scarecrow’s head

A sparrow braces itself

Against the spring wind.

He hesitated

Before hanging up his coat

On the scarecrow’s arm.