SARGASSO


 GLEANINGS

 For Ngugi Wa thiongo



 Often, it's a field at dark
 where the hooded bowed outcasts
 go, after the 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.