2024 Poetry Contest
An Open Door

My dead mother is standing beside me in a kitchen that’s mine, not-mine. She’s helping make Swedish meatballs for a dinner party I would never host. We’re in a bit of a rush. It seems the guests are coming soon. I can feel the touch of her warm skin as she hands me an ice cream scoop, secret to making every sphere the same. We work in tandem, forming meatballs from a mixture of ground pork and beef seasoned with allspice, nutmeg, salt, pepper. We pan fry them on the stovetop, then set them to simmer in a bath of cream gravy. We’re both wearing aprons I’ve never seen. Her hair is brown again, a color it hasn’t been for years, but her voice is the same. We laugh together as we fill plate after plate, assembly-line style. I’m strangely confident in my culinary skills. My cat begins to knead my shoulder, purr in my ear. I’m starting to sense sunlight behind my bedroom blinds. I feel my body begin to float. I will my mind to stay in the dream kitchen beside my mom. She doesn’t visit often. But now I smell coffee from the actual kitchen in the house that I share with my husband and sons, feel my rescue dogs curled next to my legs and feet. I try to tell my mom to come back soon, but I can’t form the words. The dream kitchen begins to fade, and Mom with it. Slowly, I open my eyes, blink away tears of joy, of loss. The scent of nutmeg hangs in the air.

What are you doing that’s so important? I scratch at the blue door between us. It reminds me of the summer heavens, expansive, inviting yet unattainable. Blue skies of possibility remain closed. I claw at the metal grate on the door. The sound of scratching on aluminum is as grating as nails against a chalkboard. Greetings person, I’m not going away yet. I place my paw into a one-inch gap Where the door and floor refuse to meet. You pretend not to see my stubborn paw. I yowl frustrated at your discomfort. You listen at words that make no sense to you specifically, they sound like noise. Make no mistake, I’m actually speaking. Let me into the grand world you hoard. I get that my persistence annoys you. Let me assure you, I feel the same, except you’re the nuisance in my mind. With ill will you finally let me inside, Calling me names as I flicker my tail. You’re expecting me to sit on your lap. Instead, I jump to the window sill. There I see the truth of the expanse, I see the blue skies subtly graduated. You, gatekeeper, don’t like how I got there, but all that matters to me is that I’m here.

The season is changing utterly, a door appearing where yesterday stood a wall, unbreachable. I can see from here light and shadow, sometimes hear sentences lilting through. What magic is this where portals drop and tease the previously uninvited? We grow, yet hold still handles we’ve learned the knack of, baggage our companion of miles. Like a child that knows the beast under the bed, and keeps toes in check, cashing this ticket, lottery won, feels dangerously like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Dear Janus, god of doorways, do you stand here, guarding this step, hand extended in the thin places, ready to usher us into liminal space? To pull me through, reluctant at the change of the hour whence no return is permitted? I reach out my hand and jump.

Feathered courtship in the yard Lusty spring is here Gone the dark of winter days Dreadful time of year Why did I leave paradise Paddies, palms, and sun Wild rides on motorbikes Happiness and fun For this frozen wilderness Windswept and forlorn I have only one excuse Here’s where I was born Once it was a thriving farm That was long ago But every breath and heartbeat here Holds my father’s soul No one questioned why he loved Days of heat and sweat Milking cows and making hay I can see him yet Flopped exhausted in a chair Forehead sunburn striped Smiling for a day well spent Father never griped Surrounded by his essence Peace and joy abound Drawn, as through an open door To this holy ground I’ve lived and loved and traveled Hatched adventure schemes Made friends in many cultures Manifested dreams Fulfilled, in want of nothing Happy as a clam I’ve settled at this ripe old age Back where I began.

It hasn’t been easy, you and I. You rejected me over and over, My crumpled dollar bills, My quarters that fell into your metal guts. The ones I got back were never the ones I put in. Holding my breath as the package inched forward, You would cling to it by a corner Until it hung down, a dangling taunt. I know sometimes I kicked you. I am sorry now. I heard tomorrow they are hauling you away. The lunchroom door’s already propped open. Good luck in your future endeavors. We can all be replaced, it seems. But on nights when everyone else had gone home You lit the darkened break room with a soft glow. The downtown skyline was a rainbow spangle And only we two there to see it. Those were our best times When I wanted nothing from you And we stood together in wonder.

It seemed as if a chorus akin to angels had assembled within its walls though only farmers and their families stood gathered, singing . . . hymn books in their hands dressed in Sunday best. From the open door of the old stone church to the dapple-shaded street below their perfect vocal harmony flowed on the rise and fall of measured breaths. Children’s voices, like sun and air, rose above the rest. A passer-by stopped to listen strongly drawn by the beauty of the sound the resonance of the familiar melody-- moved to tears . . . quelling the spirit stirred the buried urge, the thirst.

Some years ago, a large, old, scrub oak in our woods suddenly snapped in two. Its immense crown of branches shifted ominously and began to fall. The arboreal descent was accompanied by powerful crunching, cracking and whooshing. Broad branches, heavy and leaf-ladened, tangled, then disentangled with the thicket of trees around it. The broken mass of tree limbs twisted and turned Through a doorway of space in the sylvan canopy. Finally, with a tremendous exhalation of woodland air, It settled, almost gently, in its final resting place on the forest floor. Small animals, and some larger beings, too, were shocked and frightened by the tree’s demise and sought shelter for a time. But not the crows who live in the oaks, maples and pines in our woods. They joined forces and went straight to the downed tree. They inspected its massive presence on the ground from every angle. They chattered about it with each other for a spell, then went silent. The murder of crows stood vigil for a long time around the old oak, Solemn in their black feathers and intense, onyx eyes. Dignified, the crows ministered to the aged tree and much later they left together, peacefully. Crows are the kinds of friends one hopes to have. Brave in the face of disaster, aware, attentive, and considerate, right to the end. Which is why I love crows.

I see the Rustic Road sign and it is like a door suddenly opens, I flick on my turn signal and veer off to the right with high hopes. Tires cross over from tarmac to dust, crunch onto a mix of sand and gravel. Already ditches are close and weedy, snagged through with barbed wire. Sagging fence posts, splintered and dry, mark off long-fallow fields. A door hangs open on a rickety shed, red paint streaked with gray, a tangle of feral lilacs scrapes at the side, a huge stone props up the back wall. Someone has left a scattering of leaves on the flat top, an offering. I downshift up a slight grade, not quite hill, not quite flat. These roads are all about downshift, pace, aging back into a time when eyes were low to the ground, close to the detail of shiny bugs and counted petals. I count the Redwing Blackbirds I spot, but find nowhere to pullover, to stop. I drive on past a tiny white church, a cemetery girdled by black wrought iron fence, note headstones tipsy with time. The road curves to the left, a soft bend that takes me back to the glare of main road. Behind me, I hear the slap of a screen door closing.