The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest. –William Blake

In southeast Iowa, the corn and soybeans have been harvested. The fields are shorn with only the broken stalks rising from earth that was once green and growing. And we are thankful for the bounty.

Days before Thanksgiving, I am thankful for all sorts of harvests: the ones that give us food for our bodies and for our souls. I recall a late night conversation with my father, days before he died. And I give particular thanks for his vision, which increases in bounty each day.

Christ in the Field                                                                               
    --for my father
	 
He is always here
among the chaff, the broken stalks.
The last gleaner
who plumbs the rough edges
and all the deep corners.

This was my vision,
he said.

From his death bed, my father confessed
how as a 13-year-old boy who had yet to grow into his feet,
who dreamt of half-court shots
and had once set an empty lot ablaze roasting weenies,
how this boy saw all:
   the Christ who holds our hearts 
   in hands strafed with dirt;
   the workers who stand before him,
   the light soiled, their day dissolved 
   into the memory of barley;
   the Christ who opens his arms and says,
   Come to me.

I’ve never told anyone this,
my father said,
but I wanted you to know.

Now years after this confession,
here is my offering:
   the sediment of my sin,
   the sheafs of sorrow I would lay at Christ’s feet.

And this is my prayer:
   Behold, your harvest,
   all the world ablaze with longing.
   And your laborers—father and daughter—
   who commit to you 
   their dust.