There are always doorways

I’ve crossed some thresholds
with a blood libation,
some with music and champagne.
I’ve slipped through some
unknowing.

I’ve stepped with confidence
from one warm room
into a maze carved out of ice,
myself caught behind thick glass,
watching one world,
part of another,
coldness becoming part of me –

and then I’ve passed
from wilderness to pastureland,
missing the gateway,
my eyes fixed too far in the distance.

I’ve lost charms, and I’ve found them.
I’ve stepped through mighty doorways
carved with old gods and scenes of
metamorphosis – and found myself
unchanged, and waiting for me –
opened bland doors into bland rooms
scented with pain and kindness –

I have learned
that each breath is a step,
and the pathway clear sometimes,
and sometimes hard to trace

For Anmol at dVerse, who asks us to think about portals.