As Being Is Eternal

She is sitting alone in the bright room.

There are two other rooms, one dark

and closed, the other with a single light.

Outside there is a cold November.

She is remembering the statues

she saw in Greece on the mountain,

in empty rooms where light was added

to light, surrounded by silence.

They seemed ready to be seen.

The way one hears a door quietly

close and footsteps coming closer.

Present and past like that. The way

art is exact. Like the woman

in her lighted room.

She could rise and walk

into one of the empty rooms

that she is not in. Could see

a vase of red roses on the table

where white roses were last week.

Time has finished its journey,

has come its long half way.

The air is heavy as water as she

bends her head over the page.