Featured poem:
Bounty
It’s not something we do any longer:
This harvesting crops. Tilling soil.
Laboring in the fields, and turning earth
with hands hardened and healed
by the work it takes to put food on the table.
But we do prepare the meals.
And we do share ideas and stories
and laughter and community
in our kitchens and around the table
as we break bread together.
It is fitting to remember those who are not here,
to work for those who have not,
to care for those without,
and to remember that our abundance
can be repaid in acts of compassion,
deeds of kindness,
and willful understanding of others.
We come together as friends and family
to celebrate the bounty that is ours: our parents,
our children, each other. We are, after all,
the true bounty —
a part of the same stream that flows
through the generations and binds us
to the fields and seas that cradle us all.
Tony Kneidek, a former part-time MHCC journalism instructor, is no longer with us. He died of a brain tumor 10 years ago this month, but his words and spirit live on.
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