Untitled – III
Chandan Das
Clothes hang on me like the rags and tatters of
time and age:
A man of straw I guard green fields.
My golden bones of straw are plenteous:
Not a crow black and desolate will fly near me
The feather in my cap
Twitches in the wind.
I strutted on the plaza and loved my plumage
Torn from the Aztec we slaughtered with sword and smallpox
I could not eat gold but I was splendid.
Mists wreath the ruined plaza, and in the fields
The farmers have planted figures of straw on poles.