Gleaned Clean

Gleaned Clean

(“When you pick grapes from your vineyard, do not get the gleanings later, for they go to the immigrant, the fatherless, and the widow.” Deuteronomy 24:21)

We all crawl sometimes, hitched to the vacillations of time,
We all stoop through the chainlink hoping the barbs don’t catch our clothes,
sometimes looking for what we could not afford to buy.

We all miss the daylight sometimes, hidden behind cubic desks,
making ends meet, making the columns measure up, making the
checkbook
balance,
well into the dark, after the kids have gone to bed and well later
than they will ever hear our meant-well lullaby.

We all exist on lint sometimes, pulling our pockets inside-out,
and hating to ask for a handout, we never wanted to stand out this way.
Hinting around the corner, we ask for the leftover crumbs from
our daughter’s birthday chocolate cake.

We all limp like wounded soldiers sometimes, well-limbed or less,
our prospects dim at the sight of bygones just beyond the reach
of our preliminary gaze.

We all leave bread for the ducks, corn for the geese,
water for the dog straying from home. We all wait to watch
the raccoons meet for lunch, assumed before noon that
the kitten’s bowl belonged entirely to them.

We all leave more food on the table, meat on the bones
and 40% in garbage bins infused with rustwater behind
our homes.

We all miss, sometimes, the eyes that simply prayed
they might find the corner of our field ungathered,
and the lines along the fences unreaped in a bumper year.
We all joy, sometimes, to find our fields
gleaned clean.