“Viola’s Opal” by Jane Beal

Sportive Shakespeare said playfully through him,
Feste, twelfth night’s honest clown, “Your mind’s an
opal!” as he peered into the night’s dim
and falling darkness, into which they ran:

master and young man, a boy, but disguised,
for underneath a soldier’s uniform
a woman’s heart, beating fast, had surmised
all her love must remain hidden—or be torn!

Where is my brother? Lost under the wave.
Where is my hope of being belovèd?
So close we stand, hard by this rock sea-cave.
We touch, untouched, but come not near to it.

Bright-whirling fire beneath the white surface—
still veiled—that longing for Love’s golden kiss.

Jane Beal
Sunflower Songs (2012)