Lenten Harvest

Around the abandoned well
gallop horse weeds in a tangle
that no doubt holds snakes deep within,
yet she pulls her way through unafraid.
After all, she knows how
to take the clearing rake of bronze
and catch the writhing serpent,
casting it far away overhead
so that it slithers back to whence it came
from long ago in some nearby far-off realm
where dew shines like jewels in the morning sun.

So she patiently proceeds,
not knowing exactly why,
except that some force compels her
to make her way in to the well
capped like an ancient altar
upon which fish were sacrificed
for sacred meals. This land taken
from her ancestors is not hers, but she knows
its course in her own ancient river
of blood that cries out not for vengeance,
but restitution’s peace.

Thirsty now, she cuts through
all the dying underbrush
with its wild-rose thorns, greenbrier,
and sawgrass ripping into her legs.
Raw hands grasping solid coolness,
she struggles to roll away the stone
to the sweet aroma of living water
at the bottom of the dark,
as a flash of light proclaims
its rippled praise
in earthen rain from above.

Most passersby glimpse
native itinerant farm worker
clearing an overgrown land,
if they see her at all.
But those who look more closely,
over history’s obscured penumbral edge,
into her searching deep black eyes,
may find hope’s just desolation
staring back with promise
of mourning’s demand for reconciliation
in Providence-dripping fields.