The Door...

Copyright 2011 Johnny Domawa

All Rights Reserved

Life is a series of ups and downs

Stairs carved in the faces of hills and valleys

In rugged peaks and rolling plains

In calm meadows and turbulent deserts

Ever changing, ever shifting –

I stand enthralled

In the moment called now

I stand immobile against the blue skies

Questions fly at my mind

From fathomless directions, I cringe

Is it –

…

Is

It

Real?

The road before me remains unknown

The winds of change blows ever forward

Behind me, the madness of life growls like a starving lion

In the periphery of my vision, Despair beckons

Garbed in the cloth of fear and uncertainty

Loneliness in the guise of solitude –

And here I pause –

Before me lies a door

Is it real? I long to find

To reach out and feel its texture to my touch

But fear stays and numbs my mind

What if it it’s a mere mirage cast by the storms of life

A cruel joke that fate has dealt –

An image from a half remembered dream

A trick of vision from suppressed hopes

An unanswered prayer –

To float – I wish

To close my eyes and open them to see

The truth –

To see it still there before my eyes

To prick myself with a thousand daggers

And it’d still be there –

I tremble with unexplained emotions

My throat is dry and my knees tingle

The Cheshire cat’s grin appears on my face

And for a moment, I can almost feel

The symphony of Aphrodite’s lyre from across the dunes

That warm glow of early sunshine draped

Across a dew-kissed grassland that awakens

To a wonderful new day –

And still a stray thought comes to me

Like a jolt of lightning piercing a summer day

What if this door that stands before me now –

If I reach out and turn the knob

If the cold metal that beckons –

Won’t budge –

If this door is shut from within

If it’s key belongs to someone else –

My mind quakes with questions –

Should I turn away and refrain from trying?

Which is better?

To try and know the cold sensation caused

By a possibility denied and shut?

Or to walk on by –

To always wonder in the long road ahead

What if?

The wind howls as it races on its way

Beyond the door the future lies or not…

The grace of God – in prayer’s unuttered

I stand immobile in this place

Where life is made –

A crossroad found

A door…