In your extended absence, you permit me <br />use of earth, anticipating <br />some return on investment. I must report <br />failure in my assignment, principally <br />regarding the tomato plants. <br />I think I should not be encouraged to grow <br />tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold <br />the heavy rains, the cold nights that come <br />so often here, while other regions get <br />twelve weeks of summer. All this <br />belongs to you: on the other hand, <br />I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots <br />like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart <br />broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly <br />multiplying in the rows. I doubt <br />you have a heart, in our understanding of <br />that term. You who do not discriminate <br />between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence, <br />immune to foreshadowing, you may not know <br />how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf, <br />the red leaves of the maple falling <br />even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible <br />for these vines.<br /><br />Louise Gluck<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/vespers/
