She planted in the morning when the soil was still asleep
She bent her back at noon, she bent her back at the deep
The neighbors came at evening with a basket and a key
They took the yield, the root, the leaf, the branch, the entire tree
She stood in empty furrows with a lantern in her hand
And watched her own hard labor feed a softer, foreign land

The righteous do not always eat
The fruit of what they sow,
Sometimes they sign the harvest
And the harvest has to go.

The harvest of the righteous, picked by someone else's hand
The harvest of the righteous, sold in someone else's land
We planted, we planted, in a field we'll never see
The harvest of the righteous—there is more than grain in the levy

He taught the children early with a patience and a song
He carried every question, every wrong, and every wrong
The university took his name, the publishers took his lines
A board of strangers monetized the harvest of his mind
He walked the empty lecture hall and hummed a softer tune
The world had eaten everything and called it by a swoon

There is a kind of theft
That arrives in a velvet glove.
It does not break a single window.
It only signs a love.

We do not plant for the harvest, we plant because the soil is right
We do not write for the profit, we write against the night
The righteous do not measure life in what they get to keep
They measure life in what they plant and in the rows they sow in sleep

The harvest of the righteous, picked by someone else's hand
The harvest of the righteous, sold in someone else's land
We planted, we planted, in a field we'll never see
The harvest of the righteous—there is more than grain in the levy