Sowing
A poem
The spring sun spreads over the newly green grass,
and it seems the world has doubled in size.
Each person glancing up.
Each with an ache, filled with desire.
I see how life can be so beautiful and lovely.
The sun breathes life into my bones and warmth into my chest.
Yet, it is completely unfulfilling
and void of eternal rest.
Because one day the sun’s light will give out
And my bones will ache in the cold
and I will be left with nothing but doubt
Searching for fresh air, for a thick branch to uphold me.
I will be wishing to abide in something eternal and sure.
Looking out into the sky,
to the God I cannot see.
Whispering “light up my eyes,
hide me under the shadow of your wings,
lest I sleep the sleep of death.”
Oh, this bitter earth and the bitter fruit it bears.
It leaves me looking at the dew on the grass,
And the shaking leaves that each tree wears.
Has my life carried with it truth and meaning?
Do I share with this spring earth
the ripeness of fruit growing, greening?
The sweetness of a fruit reproducing,
With roots deep and soil rich.
Reading the words of life written in the sky.
The words of life now written on my heart.
Healing that great homesickness from above.
Whispering about a great harvest
a labor of love.
And when the great vinedresser, seated on the cloud,
With a golden crown on his head,
Has finally decided that the earth’s harvest is fully ripe,
and almost with a sense of dread
He will take a sharp sickle in his hand and call out with a loud voice:
“Put in your sickle, and reap!”
For the time is here and each made a choice
And so sitting on the cloud,
He will swing his sickle across the earth.
They will gather the grape harvest in one fell swoop.
Throwing it into the great winepress of wrath.
What will be left of the fruit?
Out of that winepress will flow life and death.
Were they put to death in the first days of harvest?
Did this earth yield sustaining fruit?
Did anyone find home?
Or was it a restless pursuit?
They did look up above the trees saying,
“I do not believe in a God in the sky,”
Yet they looked up unsure.
For the earth had become meaningless,
the soil brittle and dry.
But they did not see the words of life written,
because there was a veil covering their face.
They did not know to pray “light up my eyes”
“Show me your ways.”
And maybe we carried the truth with us,
and we ate the sweet fruit,
And dwelled in the house of the Lord,
But maybe we did not labor.
And in not laboring
they ate the bitter fruit of this earth.
And we were estranged,
when we shared the same sky,
the same green grass,
each the same cry
perhaps we reached for the same glass.
Drinking heaven’s dew
A sweetness never ending
Sitting next to You.
Each of us seated at the table of life.
I will be near, as He is near.
Not as a stranger, not in the sky
but here.