This Is a Time for Foragers

This is a time for foragers

For gathering the broken pieces

That careless threshers

Have left behind on their way.

This is a time for foragers,

For finding meaning in the thoughtless words

Tossed aside in the frenzied cutting,

For making nourishment from the bits

Of seed and chaff scattered by the wind,

A full meal of discarded pieces that

Fills the souls of those who come to us hungry.

This is a time for foragers,

To make more out of what others see as less,

To weave a full life from forgotten moments,

To find treasure in the soil crushed by footsteps.

This is a time for foragers,

But as we trail behind the careless threshers,

Gathering the stumps of stalks they leave behind,

We stoop to drop seeds,

One by one, to the ten thousands,

In the soil richly plowed by footsteps,

In earth eager for new crops to cultivate,

A land desperate for new ideas, a new spirit.

And though this is the time for foragers

Tomorrow will come the sun and rain,

And the seeds we have dropped in our path,

Will grow into mighty orchards,

Oceans of bursting wheat,

Sweet-smelling grasses and

Forests of trees heavy with fruit

Their branches echoing the song

Of a new time:

The time to harvest.