Atonement

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.