My soul shattered with the strain of trying to belong to earth- - Louise Glück

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.

Silence had entered me.
It was like the night, and my memories - they were like stars
in that they were fixed, though of course
if one would see they are unending fires, like the fires of hell.

It had occurred to me that all human beings are divided into those who wish to move forward and those who wish to go back. Or you could say, those who wish to keep moving and those who want to be stopped in their tracks as by the blazing sword.