The Hands That Feed The Morning Poem by linus gerald

Before the sun lifts its golden lid,
someone is already awake—
hands in soil,
breath rising with the mist,
listening for what the earth
is ready to give.

A seed does not hurry.
It trusts the dark,
the quiet splitting open,
the tender push toward light.
And in that small, unseen miracle
begins a story
that will travel farther than it knows.

From field to market,
from basket to table,
from flame to hunger—
a thousand invisible hands
carry the taste of tomorrow.

There is the farmer
reading clouds like scripture.
The fisher tracing tides by memory.
The truck driver chasing dawn
down endless roads.
The vendor arranging tomatoes
like small red lanterns of hope.
The cook stirring love into lentils,
stretching little into enough.

Food is more than sustenance.
It is memory simmering.
It is culture plated gently.
It is the quiet language
of "I care that you are alive."

But listen—
beneath abundance,
there are fractures.

Fields thirsty for kinder rain.
Workers bent under unfair weight.
Grain stored while stomachs ache.
So much harvest,
yet so much hunger.

A system is not only machines and markets—
it is people.
It is justice braided with nourishment.
It is the question of who eats,
and who waits.

What if we grew food
the way we hope to grow children—
with patience,
with fairness,
with room for every voice at the table?

What if the soil were treated
like a living elder,
not a resource to exhaust?
What if those who harvest
were honored
as deeply as those who dine?

Because every meal
is a quiet covenant—
between earth and hand,
between stranger and neighbor,
between today and the days to come.

When we mend our food systems,
we are not only planting crops.
We are planting dignity.
We are watering resilience.
We are choosing a future
where no child counts the hours
between bites.

And perhaps one evening,
as bread is broken
and laughter rises like steam,
we will taste not only salt and sweetness—
but balance restored.

For in every seed
is the promise
that care,
given freely and wisely,
can feed the world.