Garden Vagabond

Write a short story or poem about a scarecrow. Forbidden words: hay, crow, field, and man or any derivative of those words. Ex: man/men

Required words only should be highlighted in orange: pumpkin, pie, moon, mission, red, and city or any derivative of those words. Ex: city/cities.

Garden Vagabond


Our garden vagabond. That’s what
my grandmother, Annie always called him.
He arrived with the dawn; simply there, hanging around.
Watching over me ‘n my pumpkins, Annie said,
so we could bake pies come fall.
I wasn’t interested: it was only July. School was just out:
Autumn was forever away.

I called him my Vegybond.
He looked comfy, dressed in worn-out clothes:
overalls, a flannel shirt, floppy old hat, holey sneakers
with their stained tongues hanging out
and long laces tying his legs to the post.
Always smiling. Head tilted
as if he were listening to every word I said.
He was my best friend back when
the nearest neighbors were two miles away
and didn’t have any children ‘cepting two mean grandkids
who come out summers from the city.

I remember one warm summer night
sitting on the red clay watching stars come out to play.
Annie said there was a space mission
and people walking on the moon.
Couldn’t quite wrap my mind ‘round that.
My wishes were smaller; that my vegybond
could run and climb trees, instead of just
hanging on that cross-brace, his straw arms spread wide.

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