Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!

The way the light of you
finds me through the hot,
bright unnamable blue,

that square of ancient glass
in the high apse window,
backlit at mid-day Mass:

blue should not feel like burning,
like a blazing lighthouse lamp,
so here I am, learning

this color like a child
too young for words: this blue
to seek me, self-exiled;

this blue to find me, hiding;
this blue to hold me, helpless,
in your cool fire abiding.

Just a small shard, this blue,
yet I am pierced and pinned.
For me, today, no credo: only you.

—Jane Greer