only listen to the world
Feb. 13th, 2007 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ekaterinnToday was sunny and bright and I sat in the addition of my friends' house and looked at my biology book and thought about poetry. One of my friends' dogs leaned against my bare leg, soft and warm, and my gold sandals sparkled in the sunlight. I'm no means perfect and I spent the day surfing the internet instead of studying, but maybe you don't have to be perfect to enjoy good things.
One of my friends is planting flowers and vegetables in white plastic rows in this sunroom, this addition. Something will bloom, and I won't have to try to remember what the names are anymore. *g* In the vein of encouraging things to bloom, I offer this poem by Louise Gluck, from The Wild Iris, published by The Ecco Press, 1992:
Vespers
In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, 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 spot 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, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.
One of my friends is planting flowers and vegetables in white plastic rows in this sunroom, this addition. Something will bloom, and I won't have to try to remember what the names are anymore. *g* In the vein of encouraging things to bloom, I offer this poem by Louise Gluck, from The Wild Iris, published by The Ecco Press, 1992:
Vespers
In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, 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 spot 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, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.
