You want to know how I spend my time? <br />I walk the front lawn, pretending <br />to be weeding. You ought to know <br />I'm never weeding, on my knees, pulling <br />clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact <br />I'm looking for courage, for some evidence <br />my life will change, though <br />it takes forever, checking <br />each clump for the symbolic <br />leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already <br />the leaves turning, always the sick trees <br />going first, the dying turning <br />brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform <br />their curfew of music. You want to see my hands? <br />As empty now as at the first note. <br />Or was the point always <br />to continue without a sign?<br /><br />Louise Gluck<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/matins/
