Let the old year be mown
with its harvest half-grown:
Not all seed comes to fruit,
nor all summers take root.
The sun and the rain
nurture sorrow and pain
with the joys of the field.
There is good in the yield,
nipped by wind and by frost,
yes, but all is not lost.
Though I lose by my toil,
yet it sleeps in the soil,
and the sower will come
to awaken what’s numb,
what lies dormant in store—
and to plant even more.
There are seeds in the ground.
Harvests yet will abound.
O you grower of all,
what seeds you let fall
are best known to you:
Let me give them their due
and tear out the weeds,
make room for your seeds.
My wastes and my fallows,
turn all to your hallows.
Through all the new years
let me water with tears
the works of your hand,
what good should now stand,
that my hand has hurt.
Send grace on this dirt.
And let me grow well
and new mercies tell
from what you began
if I of love can,
if I of love can,
if I of love can.
By Wheat by the bridleway by Steve Daniels, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109717600
Kate Bluett 