The years between turn solid here
I know it with each spade I lift
Through all the earth I have to sift,
And yet you lived so very near.
Your name, your life are quite forgot
Not much to show you lived at all,
We pick through shards, a coin, a wall,
And pieces of a broken pot.
(The marketplace, the potter’s stand,
Striped awnings, shoppers bustled round,
The rain ran streaming off your head.
You turned it smiling in your hand
And said, “Look, dear, what I have found!
Oh, isn’t it a lovely red!)
