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Lectionary 7 A

Leviticus 19:1–2, 9–18

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God. (Lev 19:9–10)

He farmed the borrowed land like an artisan

caring for nematodes and seedlings and

the soil itself, the nurse of all life.

He harvested with a jeweler’s eye each gem of food

feeding family and strangers in village mud cottages

except at the edges he left a row or two along the fence

by the road where wayfarers and immigrants

could pluck and eat and praise

just as he and all do to glorify the soil’s maker.

One night he dreamed of the future:

mechanized efficiency, vast acres of

monocultured crops and infertile soil

and he woke with a night terror when he saw

the edges were culled clean and nothing left,

no rough meal for anyone walking by needful.

Sweat and scream filled the bed at the thought,

a godless day and place where no one remembered

edges are where holiness is waiting to be revealed.