Written after giving a workshop on writing religious poetry for a Bible studies group.
It was printed in Arts Dialogue, June 1999.
In the parable that begins in Luke 19:10, a servant reproaches the master, who represents God, saying “I feared you, because you are an austere man: you take up what you have not laid down, and reap what you did not sow.”
God does not sow the wickedness in the world, but enables us to harvest good from it.
This poem was included in Feeding Harbour (1984).
It is about the Bahai month of the fast, which in New Zealand is in the autumn.