As Being Is Eternal
By Linda Gregg
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.
Notes:
This poem is part of the folio “Linda Gregg: Never Give Up Longing,” curated by David Semanki, and was published in Gregg’s 2008 new and selected volume, All of It Singing. It is reprinted here with permission of Graywolf Press. Read the rest of the folio in the April 2026 issue of Poetry.
Source: Poetry (April 2026)