poem
Volume 37, Number 4

The Fields

I visited a country
swollen with the unemployed.

A landowner led me through
his fields.

Scarecrows stood shoulder to shoulder,
arms turning in the wind,
loudspeakers crackling
across the fields.

Birds lifted in waves.

“Human scarecrows,” he said.

“At last,
humans are taking the jobs back.”

One turned toward us
and kept
waving.


—Lee Yongha