DAY 10 – AUTUMNAL P.A.D. CHAPBOOK EXERCISE: HARVEST

/ Poetic Bloomings

And so all that we have nurtured has ripened and come to fruit. All is ready to be harvested. Your poems today are of harvest and all that it entails. Write a harvest poem. Reap the benefit of your gathered poetic skills. We’ll set the table for your word feast.

MARIE’S GATHERING OF THOUGHTS:

SOW

Sow
grace where you
may.

Pray
kindness brings good
yield.

Wield
God’s most holy
word.

Gird
softness ‘round your
views.

Fuse
truth to all you
know.

Show
love in all you
sow.

© Marie Elena Good, 2018

##

WALT, THE WORD REAPER:

HUNTER, GATHERER, REAPER, COLLECTOR

I search in the shadows
hoping to find that which I seek.
I take a peek under every leaf,
behind each tree hoping.
Setting my scope on the rhythm of your heart.
The great hunter with only the desire to love.
 

I pull the stalks of my disparaged existence,
sheared down by the scythe of life.
Bound and tethered, weathered and worn.
Shorn from the chaff, the wheat remains 
to nurture and nourish, a flourish of love.
Into the silo of my heart, you are gathered.
 

At times, I portray the reaper.
Cloaked and hooded, flooded with emotion,
I have this notion that in the harvest of souls
similar and the same, I came to cut you free
from the bonds that imprison you. 
Your freedom is your salvation.
 

I become the the collector,
the hunter of love,
the gathered of hearts,
the reaper of souls.
Harvesting all these 
before my impending demise..

 © Walter J Wojtanik, 2018

 

128 thoughts on “DAY 10 – AUTUMNAL P.A.D. CHAPBOOK EXERCISE: HARVEST”

  1. Marie – this is lovely! I can see it read at a Thanksgiving feast. Walt…the images of harvest in juxtaposition with love is brilliant! I think your harvest will be bountiful!!

    Here is my humble offering for today…

    THE GATHERING

    The sun plays shadow games on apples newly picked.
    Glowing garnet with flashes of gold and emerald –
    jewels of the orchard – ripe with treasure.
    Like benevolent pirates – Robin Hoods of farmland –
    we harvest the best of the horde.
    But what are jewels without settings – simply so many rocks –
    so, we clean and polish, fitting our abundance
    into bowls and baskets – offerings to those who thirst
    for the crisp, bittersweet snap of apples newly picked.

  3. Pingback: SOW | pictured words

  4. Feeling the Change of Seasons

    As comfortably as sowing leads to harvest,
    faith summons us to follow.
    As faithfully as spring leads to summer,
    fall must always follow.
    As assuredly as heart leads to joy,
    love presently follows.
    As completely as love leads to sharing,
    peace eventually follows.
    As ultimately as peace leads to calm,
    life truly follows.
    As predictably as life leads to death,
    new life always follows.

  5. In an effort to convince everyone that our lives touch the lives of others in ways that we may never know, I present today’s offering. Hope y’all like it.

    Unrealized Yield

    “Go Ye Therefore!!” the call came
    In a revival tent way back when
    From an old traveling evangelist
    That looked directly at Matthew
    With eyes that pierced his soul
    As if God, Himself, had spoken

    Matt stood and yelled, “Here am I!”
    And the crowd applauded loudly
    The evangelist held up his hand
    “Praise God! Praise God! Praise God!”
    As Matt was ushered to the front
    And everyone prayed over him

    The rest of the evening was a blur
    So many congratulations and prayers
    So much hopeful encouragement
    So many promising to support him
    And then there was his own shock
    Still unsure of what he’d done

    Nevertheless, Matthew pressed on
    The hand of God had selected him
    To “Go Ye Therefore” and preach
    For the harvest was plentiful
    But the laborers were so few and
    Matt had so much harvesting to do

    He would start in his hometown
    On street corners and in pulpits
    Taking any opportunity to spread the Word
    To the lost and dying within earshot
    But the townsfolk knew Matt’s past
    And doubted his change was genuine

    Jesus had the same hometown problem
    So just like Jesus, Matt when on the road
    From town to town and city to city
    He spread the truth to all who would listen
    Weeks turned into months, months to years
    Years to decades, still he pressed on

    Then one strange morning he awoke
    Old, tired, and alone with his thoughts
    Doubtful that anything he had done mattered
    Where had the inspiration gone?
    Had his efforts made any difference at all?
    Had this life of dedication to God been a waste?

    Matthew laid his head back on the pillow
    And took his last earthly breath
    When he awoke, he was standing at the Gate
    Thousands were waiting to welcome him in
    Thousands more lined the streets of gold
    All to thank him for a life well lived

    This was the unrealized yield of his efforts

  6. The Late Harvesters

    The morning, dusted with a coating of frost,
    Signals the end of my garden exploits
    All the bounty has been gathered
    The detritus of vegetable and flower composted
    Leaves raked in loose piles, perfect for
    Jumping into, or for mulching tender bulbs –
    Protection from the snowy days to come
    But the squirrels have just begun their harvest
    Scurrying from tree to tree choosing only
    The best nuts to fill their larders

  7. Missed Monday as I was traveling…. so will combine the end of Sunday’s, Monday’s and Tuesday. Short and sweet.

    (Sun)
    ….tea
    and Ice cream

    (Mon)
    add
    apple crisp
    and Cinnamon Sauce

    (Tues)
    then
    sit together
    harvesting family memories.

  8. NO NEED FOR HASTE

    Old folks
    should not harvest
    today’s clouds too quickly,
    lest we miss out on tomorrow’s
    sunbeams.

    • Darlene! Connie informed us. Many of us are praying for you, and looking forward to your return to us here, to bloom beautifully in our “garden.” May our loving Father grant relief from symptoms, and help you feel His presence moment-by-moment. Praying also for those who are caring for you. Gentle hugs!

  13. FYI, I just learned from a friend, “Darlene Franklin is in the hospital with possible blood clots in her lungs. They’ve put her on blood thinners and diagnosed her with COPD and congenital heart failure. They are treating those and will send her home in a few days.”

    I’m sure she’d appreciate your thoughts and prayers. My friend has one of the same publishers as Darlene, that’s how he got the news. Darlene is new to poetry but not to writing. She has published fifty novels or novellas.

  14. Sweet Deal

    We neighborhood kids would run across fields,
    over creeks and up and down wooded hills.
    We would play make-believe with TV names,
    all kinds of sports, an assortment of games.
    We rode our bicycles and took our spills.

    With all that action, we needed a snack.
    Near harvest time, we didn’t have to go back.
    All kinds of apples and elderberries,
    plums, cherries and grapes from bushes and trees,
    blackberries and hazel nuts, hard to crack.

    And all of that fuel would last meal to meal.
    Was free for the taking, we didn’t steal.
    We thought ourselves lucky and even blessed.
    To live how we did, we thought it the best.
    Our friends from town didn’t have such a deal.

  15. Harvest

    He looks out the window,
    coffee cup in hand,
    at the fields he once tended
    watching others gather hay, straw, grain
    and whatever else they grew

    Ah, but he could still enjoy the fruits of the garden
    apples, pears
    the cucumbers, beans and beets

    What colour this time of year
    the gold of grain
    green of the trees
    that would soon turn to red and orange
    what bounty
    from the work of hands
    from the sweat of the brow
    gathering it all in

    He never minded the heat so much
    if he could get out of it from time to time
    an ice-cold drink and some shade
    the company of his family

    He knew whose hand sent the rain
    and set the sun in the sky
    didn’t like the hail so much
    hard on the standing crops
    but he was grateful for so many good harvests
    would always be
    he’d always had enough to feed his family
    and to share

    Ah, harvest
    next to the greening of the fields in spring
    this was his next favourite time of year

  16. Probably not lined up exactly as wrotten, it copied and pasted left aligned but you get the idea.

    HEARTY HARVEST

    Hugs smiles
    a small kindness a sympathetic ear
    some needed encouragement, words of honest truth
    a spark of inspiration, some hope where there was none.
    These are the fertilizer, the water and the sunshine
    that gows the friendship I so nurture and cherish,
    one that makes us both better than we were
    before we became the mutual farmers
    of the bond that we share.
    You arre the bounty
    of my
    heart
    !

  18. Building My Tree

    What a precious tree
    I have built
    from purpled pages
    of earth
    where words are arrayed
    as leaves,
    fancy and plain from
    a humbled brain
    filled with a harvest
    spilling willy-nilly
    onto branches,
    word-seeds,
    sentence-limbs,
    and stanzas birds can sing.

  21. A Gathered Thought

    A notion falls,
    the meat of a nut,
    inside a shell hard and dry,
    to sleep thru winter soil.

    A spring arrives,
    and prompts the thought
    to emerge from its womb
    in a warming earth.

    A seedling grows
    becomes a sapling,
    rises into a small and spindly tree,
    with leaves, and blooms.

    A day arrives
    when changes come,
    and from an old tree’s buds
    nuts form and grow.

    A front moves in,
    dry stems grow cold
    and on a predetermined day
    a notion falls.

    A poet tastes
    the rich meat of a nut,
    wanting a harvest of thought
    for his art.

    It’s then that a poem,
    planted first in his mind,
    breaks ground in his
    gatherer heart.

    © Damon Dean, 2018

  22. “I pull the stalks of my disparaged existence,
    sheared down by the scythe of life.
    Bound and tethered, weathered and worn.
    Shorn from the chaff, the wheat remains
    to nurture and nourish, a flourish of love.
    Into the silo of my heart, you are gathered.”

    Incredible stanza, Walt. All the words flow with meaning.

  24. In the spring, seeds of love scattered, sown
    on fertile soil of a fresh tilled heart
    through His care have slowly grown
    watered through gentle words of grace,
    warmed in the rays of His loving face,
    in autumn now gathered close,
    a harvest of abundant gratitude and praise
    to the One who tilled an empty field
    and scattered seeds of love inside a soul.

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