Lent Prayer: Let Your land Lie Fallow

A "sort of prayer, sort of poem" for the times of "in-betweenness" (like Lent?) when we've left behind or forsaken things that were familiar to us, and don't seem to have settled in the new place just yet ... or maybe it's about restlessness and a pilgrim spirit ... maybe it will say something different to you.

It did remind me of Jonah 2:8 "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs".

Let your Land Lie Fallow: A Prayer for Fruitfulness

Let your land lie fallow: it's not your time
To send up seas of swaying gold
Cut loose the old and brace for death’s dark vale.

Let your land lie fallow: in the dark
And vacant in-between, a shard of light:
A new day beckons just beyond.

Let your land lie fallow: take your rest
Lie deep and still, time does not sleep
It will come round again.

Let your land lie fallow, do not fret
When other pastures pour forth corn -
The kind old sun will rouse you yet.

Let your land lie fallow, but eagerly seek:
The seeds lie deep, are thirsty for the rain
The skies sag heavy, it's not long now.

Comments

[wilsonian]

I am so glad that I found you when I did.

Is this yours, this poetry? It is beautiful, and beautifully articulates what I could not. I have felt like a airplane circling an airport for better than a year... unsure of what is to come. Your last stanza really resonates for me:

"Let your land lie fallow, but eagerly seek:
The seeds lie deep, are thirsty for the rain
The skies sag heavy, it's not long now."

The image of "skies sag heavy' is so perfect. But I've lost the expectancy. Thank you for stirring the eagerness I've lost along the way. I have to trust that it won't be long now.

Shalom.

[Richard L]

Thanks for your compliments. Yes it's one of my own - it grew out of the dryness in my own blog of late, and a sense of needing to let it lie fallow for a bit. A friend encouraged me to keep the blog and wait to see what grew out, and it seems to be a new wave of arty stuff, and a focus on the cross running up to Easter.

Blessings, Richard