By Jean Starr Untermeyer
Date: 7 May 1998

untitled

I have so little art.
Words leap from me with incoherent eagerness,
Or stumble out, stammering and vague;
Even my dumb tears gesture without eloquence.

I am so poor in gifts.
I have so few light-hearted hours,
So little fantasy to lead you on strange quests,
So little beauty to refresh your eye.

But I am great in this:
For you I hold infinities of love.
For you I am 
The tender fortress of content,
The radiant harbor of desire.