The Sculptor's Gain

A gem shimmers blue through forever
while circling a small yellow sun
for naught: no one's left who will notice
her grace, the cloud-swept Earth.

The cold winds sweep down from the Arctic
to scatter a tale round the hills:
beginning when all things unfolded,
the song of Adam's birth.

Eve's children, collected in silence,
were taken where time could not go:
but there in the depths of the valleys
faint echoes still remain.

The star-tousled darkness is lonely
revealed by the slow moonlit night;
the last nightjar calls in the quiet
above the barren plain.

The clay sculpted once in the morning,
an image of Self made in joy,
has tumbled and crumbled to ashes.
Who knows the Sculptor's gain?

Anne Yohn
April 2001