gates

She never knew she would arrive

in this exquisite garden.

She knew the old faces

watching her.

They used to visit

in restlessness.

She always knew there would be a day

of reckoning,

She never knew the day would glisten

around golden gates,

at the foot of the mountain

she had always feared.

She knew about those faces,

and their calculation.

And they knew about her sin.

But what she did not know

was about mercy.

All that she truly knew,

resting on her soul,

was the intimate embrace

of time

and its expiration.

(r.w.)