absolute truce

you say tomato, I say persimmon
words slide down tongues of both men and women
they can no longer register taste
at the sound of syllables placed
in delicate sequence

the harvest is all wrong
only the scarecrows dare sing a song
those little black birds we soon will eat
gathered where they fell, their little crows' feet
our eyes' undisguised laments

as they pointed up to the sky
where birds so casually fly
and now as we eat them
we slowly gain wisdom
or so we would like to believe

and maybe we will never sprout wings -
singing what the scarecrow sings -
and take flight in our search
for that absolute truth, a perfect perch
and a moment's sigh of relief

but we will settle for an absolute truce
barely able to get off the ground
and because we like the sound
each one of us will honk like a goose