The Cameo Carver Poem by Jewell Miller

Sequestered by a wall of sunbaked clay,
His bowed head turned to catch the waning light
From one high shell he held since early day,
The carver curls a trailing fragile strand
Around the slender column of a throat
All alabaster pale. He takes no note
Of hunger or the strain upon his hand.
Thumb and fore-finger, bruised and swarthy dark,
Are splayed by pressure on a knife so fine
That it can trace the wandering of a vine,
Give motion to the poised wings of a lark,
And win a trembling lustre from the shell
That once was dull. This lights his lonely cell.