Every day, many times,
I push down the lever
that opens the door
from the room to the house,
from the house to the world.
Such a simple gesture,
grasping, then pushing,
then letting go.
Sometimes quickly,
as when I am trying
to keep the cat inside.
Sometimes slowly,
as when I am trying
to quietly enter
a room where someone else
is sleeping.
To open a door
is to move from one space
to another, perhaps a space
where dark rye bread is baking
filling the room with its midnight scent,
perhaps a space where a single
bare lightbulb is swinging,
perhaps a space filled with birdsong
or gunfire or stars or a final breath.
My whole life
I’ve been practicing
how to enter a space—
how to meet what is there
on the other side
and still be true to myself.
My whole life I’ve been opening doors,
some I immediately regretted,
though there is no going back.
The room I left is never the same
when I return,
nor am I the same.
My whole life
I’ve been opening inner doors,
always surprised to find
another, always surprised
how big the worlds are
in a space the size of me.
Every door I open
I practice how it is
to move through,
to move into,
to offer my attention
to what is new,
perhaps a gust of wind,
a lullaby being sung,
a spacious grief or an expansive trust
I never dreamt was there.
Posts Tagged ‘door’
Ode to Opening the Door
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged door, opening, practice on March 9, 2021| 2 Comments »
One Arriving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged arriving, door, hope on October 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Between
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, door, in between spaces on August 31, 2020| 4 Comments »
with thanks to Rebecca Mullen for showing me the doors
And if a door closes
before another opens,
well, sometimes in the hall
between those doors
I find the precarious beauty
that can only be met
when I am not quite safe,
not quite certain, not quite
a self, and wholly here.
I’m talking tiny dust mote
in the deep field beauty—
beauty that refuses
to be named.
This is what it’s like
to learn to trust—
to live with one arm forward,
one arm back and feel
marvelously stretched,
perilously opened,
like a flute, like a kite,
like a wing.
Between Intimacy and Independence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged door, love, opposition, poem, poetry on January 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »
we become what we love and yet remain ourselves.
—Martin Heidegger
and this is how
the vessel learns
that though it’s full
there’s room for more—
those sides of us
we thought were walls
were well concealed
doors
One Stuck
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awareness, door, inner journey, poem, poetry on March 15, 2018| 5 Comments »
Inspiration
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged door, inspiration, poem, poetry on November 7, 2017| 2 Comments »
And then one day, everywhere you look,
a door, waiting for you to open it.
In the apple tree. In the parking lot.
in a blade of grass. In each stone.
Not that it appeared because you are here.
More that it always existed and now
you can see it. In the asphalt drive.
In the dotted line. In the telephone ring.
In the scent of lemon. And every door
a world you might choose to enter.
Kiss on the neck. Cloudy sky.
Magpie wing. News headline.
You can’t possibly enter them all.
Button hole. Rising bread.
Sometimes you can go back
and the door will still open. Sometimes,
even on the most familiar path,
you can never go back again.
Something Like This, Anyway
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged door, open, poem, poetry, prayer, surrender on October 1, 2014| 2 Comments »
If I prayed, which I don’t,
then we could say that I asked
god to open every door that I
had shut, every door I did not
know was there.
Why I asked this, well,
this will make sense to you
or it won’t, but every closed
door I was aware of
had became a point of suffering.
And with every open door,
I could feel congruence,
the world rushing in to create
more space in me.
And god said to me, though
we could not say that it was a voice,
god said, Open even the door with people jeering
on the other side, their faces twisted
in hate? Even the door to an entire
forest of sorrow? And because
this conversation was not really
happening, we could not say that
I said yes to the questions, but
we could say, perhaps, that
the yes began to root in me
and it was not so much a matter
of someone opening the doors
but that the doors more or less
dissolved. And what I had thought
could separate me from anything else
was shown to be nothing at all.
I would like to tell you that I felt grace
in the opening, but the truth
is I felt such terrible ache.
And god did not come put a hand
on my cheek and tell me
everything would be okay.
In fact, if anything, the voice
I did not hear told me
there are no promises.
But I felt it, the invitation
to keep opening doors,
to not close my eyes,
to not turn away.
And though I do not pray,
I said thank you, thank you.
Six Invitations
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged curiosity, door, key, opening, poem, poetry on January 10, 2014| 4 Comments »
walk into the wall
walk into the wall, walk in
to the wall, walk into
the wall, walk into the oh,
there’s a door
*
key after key
after three-hundred-sixty-
six keys that do not
fit the keyhole I find
the door’s unlocked
*
stepping through the door
to find
another door
*
who built
all these doorways
anyway?
*
something about
a doorway—it seems to want
to be walked through
*
or is it the walker
who does the wanting,
already I feel
it rising me
curiosity
Oh Saint Francis, Perhaps I Am Learning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged door, key, poem, poetry, self inquiry, wholeness on November 11, 2013| 3 Comments »
When I feel lonely, my first thought is that you hold the key to my loneliness. … In the end, seeking only brings us to the edge of knowing ourselves.
—Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening, November 10
Here it is not,
the key I was looking for,
here where I knocked
on beautiful doors,
and ornate doors, and grand
doors, and ancient doors, and
safe doors, and hidden
doors and doors of November.
But here it is,
so close I could hardly
step without walking into it,
this door that has
no lock, no key,
this door
with my own name
on it.
What If Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged door, fear, haiku, love, poem, poetry on April 28, 2013| 1 Comment »
standing on the stoop
of your heart, too scared
to ring the bell