In Risa Bear’s “There Are Rooms,” a life is imagined as a series of rooms. People we love enter as guests, but no one can fully inhabit our inner space: the speaker says a solitude begins at this wall and ends at that wall, and the rest is not entirely ours. Even our own bodies become strange over time—hands shrivel “like hands of strangers.” That discovery of emptiness, made visible by moonlight on water or sunlit dust, should not be fought. The speaker’s tone is quiet and accepting rather than bitter, and the mood is contemplative, even elegiac. We owe our guests restraint, since we can offer them little; each will leave, fumbling for the light switch, and evening will come. The closing line, “Do not grieve the door,” asks for peace with impermanence and solitude. That acceptance feels hard-won but calm.
There Are Rooms — Summary
There are rooms in a life that may sometimes Have someone in them; but they are guests there. Even when one most loves, one may find, Really, a solitude that begins at this wall, Ends at that wall; the rest is not entirely ours.
As years turn and suns, moons and stars Rise up and fall like rain by every window Even one's hands will shrivel soon enough Right at the ends of one's arms, as hands Of strangers. But to fret at this discovery Of emptiness arrived at and emptiness Made clear by moon's dance with water, Sun's dance with dust, by endings never sought In even that one room that is one's own, is Not worthy of even that we call our life.
All our guests deserve from us restraint. Little enough we can offer them as it is; In a short while each vacates each room, Feeling for the light switch as each goes. Evening comes. Do not grieve the door.