Does Poetry Still Say Aye to Aglaea, the Third Grace?

 

As one ages—it begins to dawn,
however slowly as years pivot,

that true presence is a gift of gifts,
cutting right into what has been

and always is—but how would we know?

By virtue of discerning, noticing,
as each breath cannot help but clear

what would have been a stifling death—

and so serving a steady air’s bath.

How it came that, in the old aevum,
eternity and lifetime were one,

and each that used to be agelic,
or “ever alike,”

as in aye—ever so—and ever alive,

a Charita,
a Grace—

but then—
whence does come the third?