DOORS BY JIM HARRISON

I'm trying to create an option for all

these doors in life. You're inside

or out, outside or in. Of late, doors

have failed us more than the two party system

or marriages comprising only one person.

We've been fooled into thousands of dualisms

which the Buddha says is a bad idea.

Nature has portals rather than doors.

There are two vast cottonwoods near a creek

and when I walk between them I shiver.

Winding through my field of seventy-seven

large white pine stumps from about 1903

I take various paths depending on spirit.

The sky is a door never closed to us.

The sun and moons aren't doorknobs.

Dersu Uzala slept outside for forty-five years.

When he finally moved inside, he died.

(C) Jim Harrison

• What are some of nature’s portals ? Make a list of at least 20 in your journal. For example, the sun setting behind Mount Tam, the wind in the autumn leaves… just keep going.

• When have you followed a path in the woods led by spirit? What happened? What did you see? What did you experience? What did you learn?

• Begin a poem with the line, “The sky is a door…”