THE HARVEST

THE HARVEST

Written by Eddie Garrett

You asked for reapers.

I am sending reapers—You Are my reapers.

Where is your sickle? Where is your scythe?

You have put them away thinking that the season is over.

But you did not clean or sharpen your tools—you must keep them sharp

For harvest may not come as you expect but as I give the increase.

You ignore the edges of the field,

And return again to the brittle stalks that have been picked clean—

To the fruit that has dried on the vine,

To what refused to be harvested in good time.

There is no sustenance there. No real meat.

Only mouthfuls of something hard, dry, and tasteless.

Go to the edges where the wild fruit grows.

Though you have not sown there,

I have given you a bounty, a sweet flavor.

Sometimes that which grows wild bursts with the most flavors.

Do Not let the fruit rot, still waiting—anticipating—its picking—

Its deliverance.

Go to your neighbor’s field and glean what has been left there—

Scrape the ground, cut the edges. It would have been wasted otherwise.

He won’t mind; he left it there—perhaps out of frustration.

He may have the wrong tools for this fruit. Your tools may be more

effective.

There are other fields with strange fruit.

Fruit that looks different, smells different.

It is unappealing to you, but I love it.

I want it. I crave it.

Go and retrieve it for me; Or send for it.

There are other reapers who are waiting to go to those fields.

Send them if you can not go yourself.

Don’t worry about that strange fruit—

Over time you will learn to love it, too.

My tastes will become your tastes

When you eat at my table.