Sowing

(Spring in the Country by Grant Wood, 1891-1942,
American painter)

This famous verse from Ecclesiastes (3:1-9) reminds us of life’s order of events and prepares us for the future:

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

~ from The Authorized King James Version of the Bible, marking the 400th anniversary of its publication this year. “The scholars who produced this masterpiece,” wrote Winston Churchill, “are mostly unknown and unremembered. But they forged an enduring link, literary and religious, between the English-speaking people of the world.”

SOWING

It was a perfect day
For sowing; just
As sweet and dry was the ground
As tobacco dust.

I tasted deep the hour
Between the far
Owl’s chucking first soft cry
And the first star.

A long stretched hour it was;
Nothing undone
Remained; the early seeds
All safely sown

And now hark at the rain,
Windless and light,
Half a kiss, half a tear,
Saying good-night.

~ Edward Thomas (1878-1917), British poet