Anna Montgomery, Chromaphilia, painting

An Inevitable Process of Biology

The angel, immobile,
Serenely gazes from her rest
In the well of an old Underwood Number 5
While I try to connect to Sylvia Plath
Find my own dear words
And avoid the black dark.

If I am to believe
The Four Noble Truths
Then my practice, the process, is all
Yet I cannot help but feel
The undertow of time
The burden of ignorance.

When she speaks with me
All is multilayered meaning,
Possibility and exploration.

When I am alone, the judge,
Renders all immaterial, fading
No true bastion of immortality.

If these words, my words
Are no more fixed in human hearts
Than the fleeting whispers of the wind,
Then I have nothing more
Than time, alone in a room,
Under the angel’s ceramic visage, reflecting nothing.