Good Ground (by Malcolm Guite)
I love your simple story of the sower, With all its close attention to the soil, Its movement from the knowledge to the knower, Its take on the tenacity of toil.
I feel the fall of seed a sower scatters, So equally available to all, Your story takes me straight to all that matters, Yet understands the reasons why I fall.
Oh deepen me where I am thin and shallow, Uproot in me the thistle and the thorn, Keep far from me that swiftly snatching shadow, That seizes on your seed to mock and scorn.
O break me open, Jesus, set me free, Then find and keep your own good ground in me.
Poem taken from Parable and Paradox (Canterbury Press) and is printed with the poet’s permission https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2015/10/10/good-ground-a-sonnet-on-the-parable-of-the-sower/)