I discover the nature of the doors
in ways that preclude formulation.
At times it is as though I were
a miniature camera tracking silently
through internal, serpent passageways.
A measured pan, invariably to the left,
reveals mysterious, dimly-lit alcoves
that recall niches set within the smoothed
stone walls of holy shrines
I’m certain I’ve never visited.
Invariably asymmetrical; unlike
all other doors I’ve known, these doors
are sometimes red, sometimes olive-green
but often of a hue I cannot put a name upon.
I could as well say they were
taste-buds; indescribable aromas
at once familiar and strange:
or that it is as though I had entered
the hearing apparatus of a hunting dog,
a jackal, or some wheeling bird of prey.
Each of them opens suddenly;
capitulates to the key of personal
surrender; leads, to the eternal
present, that severest of taskmasters:
for, whatever I carry with me
through their portals determines
the nature of my Odyssey.
Carry fear and insecurity and the beyond’s
a fearsome place: but with ego-less
humility my passage there is bliss.
