There is a category for poems and songs so what the heck. It is a beautiful harvest weekend here in New England, the land of Squanto, the original militia, whiskey rebellions, giant pumpkins, brilliant Autumn colors and the whaling ships.

The cold wind seems to have come early, and maybe it is just the y2k jitters, but that gives me a sense of foreboding for this fast-approaching winter..It is like a great n'oreaster is vast approaching and the people are heading to the beaches! New England is the land where Puritans and other Christians once "ruled" the culture, and prayer and fasting was often called for in response to natural disasters or in times of distress and war, as the people feared the judgements of a Holy God, but it is now the land of widespread witchcraft, intellectual pride and skepticism regarding the existence of a loving and Holy God (in whom our dollars falsely claim we trust).

For those of you who do not want to or do not feel you can believe in this Lord, you're probably about to stop reading! Hope at least you can enjoy some of the images in the poem if you can't relate to the message. For those of you who believe in a God who would never dare to bring judgements against a rebellious people, you will not like the tone of the Harvest poem. But it is harvest season here in New England, and in the whole world. We are about to live through, or die in, a worldwide harvest that the Sovereign God has planned for us. We shall reap what we have sown, both technologically and theologically..For those of us who Get It when it comes to the potential (notice I didn't say guarantee) of severe judgements, it behooves us to do as the waves spell out in this poem.

Happy Harvest and Feast of Joy (John 7). Get your seeds and house in order and prepare to meet your y2k.Are you, am I, compliant with the Lord?

Walter Skold

PS. For any of you who feel inclined to pray for your brothers and sisters in New England, check out this site: http://necp.org/ Thanks, and we'll all try to keep you, our neighbors in the US and in this whole feculent yet fecund world in our prayers as well.

Harvest 1999

Now is the season of our Succoth--
Great pumpkins explode with laughter
And the yellow kernels burst with glee
But the geese seem to flee this year,
As the chill is a boy arriving
To get the best seats at the ballgame,
And the wind is a wizard that spells
"Disaster is in the air."
And is disaster in the air this year?
This year, this year of our Lord
Two-Thousand and some or so
And so it is this time of year
The acorns fall, food for squirrels,
And leaves, like butterflies,
Shed and bleed their brilliance
In a yearly dance of death.

O Lord, there is much chaff.
We, Your people, are crushed,
broken under foot like these leaves
into mulch - mere compost
in a feculent world.
Yet stalks, grains, and future seed
Are nursed in what we see as waste
And gathered up for good
In this world as well fecund,
Despite the sharp, the winnowing scythe
That scrapes across our golden fields
And brings this pain of harvest birth.

Yea, it is the Feast of Ingathering --
The corn and pumpkin fields are ripe
Despite this bounty of mutinies
We have shacked up and dwelt with
As though we love the stench of death.
We have sown, we have sown,
We have sown the wind,
And now this whirlwind reap.
The stalk has no Autumn head;
The winter has no flour.

Yea, the spirit of Squanto hovers o'er
This land of game and goodly boughs
And joins the Pilgrims in laments
To mourn the loss of Heaven's scents.
The birds fly south, due south,
On winds that churn like ocean waves
That sound the words "Repent, repent."


-- Walter Skold (wsvnsk2@juno.com), October 08, 1999

Answers

Is much gooder i hope??

Sysop #3

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), October 08, 1999.

"widespread witchcraft"? Where? Its almost Samhaine and I have no circle to go to.

-- biker (y2kbiker@worldnet.att.net), October 08, 1999.