The Visitor

One night I thought someone had come into the room.

The door had not opened,
yet the air changed slightly,
as though another presence had taken a seat
in the chair near the wall.

I spoke, though I did not know to whom.

“Have you come again?”

No answer, at first.
Only the clock continuing its work,
and the faint smell of cold ash
from the fireplace.

At last I understood
what kind of visitor this must be.

Not the skeleton from old paintings,
not the hooded messenger of sermons.

Something quieter.

The knowledge that has walked beside me
since the beginning.

I asked what it wanted.

“Very little,” it seemed to say.
“Only what belongs to me already.”

I thought of the years I had lived
expecting some final revelation—
a gate opening,
a voice explaining the order of things.

But the visitor carried no message.

Only patience.

We sat together a long time.

Outside, the night continued as usual:
wind moving through the trees,
a distant car passing on the road.

Nothing in the world had changed.

Except that I saw more clearly
what had always been true:

that each of us walks for a while
in borrowed light,

and that the end,
when it comes,

needs no ceremony.

Only the quiet closing
of the door behind us.