The Heart of Gifts

And so it is I pick it up
And feel the very heart you gave
In the thing so lifeless now
I experience again your good intention.

And even in the golden ball
Which I never really liked
I see the heart that listened well
And tried to give accordingly.

And in the foreign words I feel
What cannot be described with sight
The very thing behind the thing
That burns so very bright.

I see your effort mainly here:
In the giving of good gifts
But that was not enough for me
And I felt alone outside your gate.

Was it from some book you read?
Or from some proverb you had heard?
That put your energies in gifts?
And kept you always scared of me?

I have seen a glimpse of you
And seen inside your heart
But just a glimpse was all I had
And now the objects left behind.

So many of them speak your love
And speak of your concern
But they are only things to me
And not the love I'd hoped to find.