WHEN a storm comes up at night and the wind is crying,
When the trees are moaning like masts on laboring ships,
I wake in fear and put out my hand to find you
With your name on my lips.

No pain that the heart can hold is like to this one–
To call, forgetting, into aching space,
To reach out confident hands and find beside you
Only an empty place.

This should atone for the hours when I forget you.
Take then my offering, clean and sharp and sweet,
An agony brighter than years of dull remembrance.
I lay it at your feet.