Lorna Goodison

Gleanings

Often it's field at dark
where the hooded bowed outcasts
go, after reapers have passed
collecting then, the gleanings.

Sometimes after the harvest is in
and the fields are lying spent
they still move in twilight foraging
for the seeds the birds have missed.

(What a hard time the post-harvest is!)

We glean outside the system
our candidate did not win.
We glean outside our father's yard
the stewards are self-serving.

We glean outside the temples of fullness
for charity dropped careless
from full sheaves above.
It is time to come into the kingdom.