The fields of
the semiarid Midwest desperately try to retain the moisture that will help
to bring life to seeds not yet planted; the seeds laying safe in the barns,
weighed and measured ready for planting when the winter has finished her
ravaging.
Not all the frozen fields are waiting, however. In the
fields that were plowed unseasonably, broadcast with wheat kernels, something
is sluggishly stirring beneath the crusted snow.
Winter wheat.
It is planted
after the harvests are gathered and stored. It is flung out into forgotten
fields while the land still retains a little warmth from the waning sun, and
then is left to itself to endure the bleak chill of winter. While its sister
wheat has been harvested and safely rests, the winter wheat hardens itself. It
snuggles down into the frozen earth waiting for momentary thaws and fresh white
moisture to descend.
Despite the long days of winter winds, small green sprouts
begin to appear. Roots anchor the stunted plants to the soil and then when the
season begins to change and the skies, steely cold, begin to warm, the wheat
begins to grow in earnest. Then the unseasonable harvest beings.
The winter wheat is harvested in late spring or early
summer.
The kernels are few and pithy, small and hard, and yet packed with the
stuff of life. It will yield the proteins that will make our bread nourishing,
and the gluten that will provide beautiful loaves and dainty cakes.
Simple,
energy packed grains will cross oceans to feed the hungry of the world.
A
desirable, rich harvest brought about by cold drought, thawing and freezing,
forcing the kernels through the devastating winter that has brought about this amazing
heartiness that the final milling has released.
Winter Wheat
The
pumpkins are carved
The
apples are picked
Fields
gleaned of their goodness
are
quiet as an empty womb
They
whisper even at rest, "Fill us"
Those
obedient first fruits are content,
the
ones who fell as seed from hands
newly
come from April's sunrise prayer,
fully
ingathered now and bursting with
summer
vitality
The
empty fields do not call
to
such delicate seed to be filled
They
beckon to the hard-shelled,
Johnny-come-latelies
who slept through
spring
rains and abstained from the
glorious
summer sun
"Fill
us" they call as the days
shorten
and the ground chills
There
is bounty saved for these
late
hours where frost sings
your
beauty to life-
where
December celebrates Christ's nativity and your own
You
are the second spring whose
holy
bread all the long winters of this world
have
waited for
