To a Rich Young Man

The boatsman reaches the landing
partly by pulling,
partly by letting go.
         Egyptian Proverb

Imagine yourself
a loamy field along the Nile
fed by silt-laden floods,
green and rippling with wheat,
lush, beautiful,
blessed.

Imagine the farmer
who turns your soil, plants,
nourishes your growth.
Will he leave you unharvested,
unthreshed, unable
to feed his family?

You will be scythed,
left fallow for a season
until you are replenished,
then emptied again and again.
That is the way of fields.

But you can choose:
regret every harvest
as perpetual loss,

or imagine yourself
a basket of bread,
blessed, passed,
never running out.

• To read more of my poetry, visit www.facebook.com/latterdaysaintpoetry.

• For questions, comments, or concerns, contact me at merrijane.rice@gmail.com.

• Talk cited: “What Lack I Yet?,” Larry R. Lawrence, General Conference, October 2015