My life is very
Scuffed up
Round the edges
Hither too
Better than
A scarecrow
Keeping
Snobs a way
As they brood
Over heir dues
Wile
They are off
Making hay
Their own
Abrade
Turning straw men
Into goaled
Only for stalling
Such rumpled stilt skin
As tress up
And wig out
Combing the whirled
As eye sport
A primordial stile
Simply a tease
Even within
The realm
Of possibility
Dread locks
Or without
Mull it over
As if
Disguise a loser
Uncaptivated buy genteel waves
For going
AWW
That you are
Blowing in the wind
Air to the throne
This poem is an ode to living on the fringe, even if your life becomes somewhat scuffed up. Living on the edge can be in stark contrast to the conventional wisdom and way of life in the dominant culture of so-called Western civilization. Concern about status and appearance, as well as a fixation on material conveniences, drives many to trade deeper meaning for inane existence.
Many settle for a life too easily demarcated by stereotypes and oversimplifications. I like to joke that my long hair is for the convenience of others in easily identifying me as a “hippie,” so they don’t need to spend much time really getting to know me — which is to love me! Using the metaphor in this poem, my hair serves as a scarecrow to drive off superficial people. Encountering stereotypes which make one uncomfortable can serve as a simple weeding out mechanism. Of course, those that really know me, know why I have long hair, and why I pray for the day to cut my hair. Also, those that really know me know that I don’t cringe from the label “hippie,” but it is a poor approximation of my character and life. I am not particularly “hip,” my sexual mores are “live and let live” but hardly a free for all, and I like my consciousness unadulterated by drugs.
I try to assume that people are irreducibly eccentric and idiosyncratic. In short, I believe that every person is infinitely interesting. Of course, spending a great deal of our time exploring these individualities cuts into the efficiency of reducing people to shorthand stereotypes, placing them in definable little boxes, so that we can navigate people more like things and life can be more predictable. Some of this is inescapable as we have to form an impression, however tentative or temporary, about people. The dangerous temptation that is a threat to humanity is to solidify our views of people and discounting their unfathomable humanity for our convenience and striving for efficiency and productivity. This can blur the immeasurable difference between human lives and things.
I propose that a wise precept would be that, if in doubt, choose people over things — every time! Perhaps the most valuable gift we can give one another is our presence. Who wants to compete with another’s interest in inanimate matter (or inane matters) rather than have another lovingly delve into the whole of who we are? Of course, simply being with someone, spending time with someone else, is a profound vote for how much you value them. This is much more the currency of life than money and stuff. We are so much more than dust in the wind, even stardust in the celestial wind; and whatever that “so much more” is is what we should pay attention to, if we want to participate in life, not simply have a life lived for us, as if we were simply complicated dirt. We are not blowing in the wind, air to the throne…a scarecrow’s doo.
