Vespers by Louise Glück

Vespers

 

In your extended absence, you permit me

use of earth, anticipating

some return on investment, principally

regarding the tomato plants.

I think I should not be encouraged to grow

tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold

the heavy rains, the cold nights that come

so often here, while other regions get

twelve weeks of summer. All this

belongs to you: on the other hand,

I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots

like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart

broken by the blight, the black spots so quickly

multiplying in the rows. I doubt

you have a heart, in our understanding of

 that term. You who do not discriminate

between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,

immune to foreshadowing, you may not know

how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,

the red leaves of the maple falling

even in August, the early darkness: I am responsible

for these vines.