Resting upright at the crest of the hill , surveying ploughed fields all round waiting to shoo away inquisitive birds looking for fresh seeds among the rich furrows. The earth freshly turned by slicing wheels pulled behind a chugging blue tractor, its exhaust note that rose and fell in a low gurgling pitch.  Soil turned over in rich brown gouges arteries severed in the earth.

Keeping guard, straw thoughts of light headedness of nothingness, feeling hollow and impotent, attached to a stick or a post, a throw away plate for a face and bottle tops for eyes, waving tin foil hands in the wind when it comes, rustling a load of time. Cans hanging over his back, a real hobbo , a real travelling man in  flanelette shirt.  Looking out for his friend the tin man who might come walking down the yellow brick road anytime soon. Outside all day and night, through strong summers and weak winters, contemplating the taste of the rain and the clouds wanting to itch that scratch in his behind but arms won’t move, frustrated beyond measure at his inability to do anything but observe and think and be Buddha like.

He imagines the field in full bloom months from now; yellow waving petals of happy sunflowers at head height, engulfed in a sea of flaming yellow, felling the joy and happiness of those optimistic plants, sharing their belief until harvest, until the field is stripped bare again and the drone of the tractor puts him in a trance – perhaps then they’ll move him, give him a new perspective , a new shelf of fence line  to rest his eye on. He’d prefer to walk there, but the farm hand will come and dig at his foundations and transplant him to elsewhere – a holiday, a relief. Newness, new birds to scare away, perhaps some new tin foil hands, an operation, a facelift to make him feel young again. Golden straw dreams begin again….