There is a lemon tree in my garden
and a peach tree needing
just a bit of fertilizer to return itself
back to its pristine state of ultimate juiciness,
which, they tell me, will take a year.
In between them both is a white clothesline.
No clothes, just clothespins:
blue, orange, yellow, and green.
Off in the distance, the sound of church bells
interrupts nothing, red bougainvilleas
blooming in all four corners of the garden.
Yes, it has come to this: watching flowers grow.
Now I know why those 80-year old Chinese poets,
wrinkles like hieroglyphics of an unspoken poem,
spent so much time tending their plum trees.

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