We come early and late to the field,
when the light has thinned to gold
and the air keeps its small coolness in the grass.

Each of us bends to a different row,
gathering what the slow years grew:
a word held over, a grief gone soft,
the seed of some bright morning
we no longer name but still can taste.

Look how the sheaves lean together,
stalk against stalk,
as if to say nothing is finished alone.

What we carry in from the dusk
is not the whole of us,
only the yield,
only the bread that others will break.

 

11/6/2026