All dolled-up and nowhere to go but home

I have had a busy week, mostly away from the computer and mostly for pleasure. We went to Wimbledon, for example, to see something of the tennis championships, and to The Royal Horticultural Society's gardens at Wisley. So not a lot of blog activity, I fear. Apologies wherever they may be appropriate. I will try to catch up. The poem comes from the Wisley visit. It probably needs putting away for a week or two and then some serious work to be done on it, but I post it now for reasons of topicality.

All dolled-up and nowhere to go, but home.

Scarecrows. A magic trail of them. People
are posing with them, photographs are being taken
of them arm in arm, embracing them
or smooching up to them, some
even feigning a meaningful moment,
all glad-eyed and gossippy, down on their knees
with them. Others not feigning, alive in
a fantasy: scarecrows are living;
we, the clockwork copies of ourselves.



"How fresh and original!" someone is saying.
(I think it must be one of the people.)
(Can you see in the figures
some ground-breaking trait?) I fancy
you'll find no unorthodox types.
They are all of conventional breed: punk,
vicar, court jester, spiv, banker, director -
and one Madam Chairman who thrills me to bits,
and looks like a dominant minus her whips.



Bamboozled by appearances,
we cannot resist
the subtle crudities of gaping hole for mouth
and earth-filled stocking for a nose. Like songs
or smells they are connecting us
to home, to where we most belong, where are
the china dog, long-legged doll and fluffy bear,
a place of lost relationships
found for this short while.