Eda Lou Walton

From “Beyond Sorrow”

NOW for the long years when I could not love you,

I bring in recompense this gift of yearning—

A luminous vase uplifted to the sun,

Blue with the shadows of near-twilight.

Here in its full round symmetry of darkness,

Burning with swift curved flashes bright as tears,

I lift it to the lonely lips that knew

Its slow creation, and the wheel of sorrow turning.

Take it with hands like faded petals,

White as the moonlight of our garden;

And for the long years when I could not love you

Drink from its amber-colored night.