Time for a different kind of harvest*
where first fruits are seeds
stored for an unknowable future.
Time for a different kind of time
when days are long and lunar,
when we cannot punch our clocks,
can scarcely safely measure
our shadows.
Time for a different kind of different
diffident, disposed,
where the heroes are heroes
because they stay home
and the essential who enter the world
are the winged and fragile messengers
of God.
There is no Ruth here, no Naomi.
We journey no longer,
belong only to our own. It’s
time for a different kind of harvest
where we reap and reap
but know not what or whether
we sow.
* The line “Time for a different kind of harvest” comes from Rabbi Rachel Barenblat’s poem, “The Handmaid’s Tale (Ruth).”
This poem originally appeared in Miknaf Haaretz: A Shavuot Zine.
