was yesterday. I went out in the yard

in back today. I didn’t stay: too hot

for comfort even under the apple trees

hung—smothered in fact—by Concord

grape vines, unpruned, run rampant. But

then, my step-father, the gardner is

dead. The garden that he took such pride

in isn’t much really anymore. I don’t

mind it this way. It’s dry (rain predicted)

and from this desk it used to be, say,

more than thirty years ago, you could look

right down the valley that leads to Olean.

Now, in August, the leaves of young trees

across the street hide all that view of

uncultivated fields where sometimes

a horse would unexpectedly appear: Jim

Westland’s. Jim’s dead too, and Katharine,

his wife. So kind to me when I was

in my teens. A hot breath of wind stirs

a white voile curtain: or are they

organdy or net? It couldn’t matter less.

Below the window a taxus hedge: Japanese

yew, so popular for foundation plantings 

in suburbs and small towns. Qualunque:

commonplace. I like a house to rise up

naked from the ground it stands on. Oh,

honestly I don’t much care one way or the

other. And what’s that small purple

flowered weed or wild flower that grows

in grass, making something like an herb

lawn? Typing this makes me sweat. No

more today. You see, I’m waiting.