The Door
by Jeff Bien
It stands inanimate, unclothed, magisterial
High as it is, a slag of coal dust and light years of musical silence
It lives for every fleeing thing, every word, every stammer, ever knocking sound
The pulpit of pulley and screw pump, and swinging spirals, Archimedes is said to have named.
The musical sphere of the Pythagorean infant universe stretching its wings, dream weaving
Breathless frightened shadows, the mares of night that stole the fire from the Gods
On a wooden crate, in the quiet of the speaker’s corner, it barely whispers to the moon
Minions of metalanguage gird the painter’s hand to shade colour shapeless sapling stars.
Something twists and hollers, glum as a rainy day, that shoe shines the river eternal
Chasing swallows from the perch of an unfledged twig, a blearing smallness, tinier than they are
The nested diminutive kingdoms children watch, asking only to be children, for no reason at all
And the gods, unemployed, by that salvation, and final sin.
On both sides of everything, grimly determined, simply there, as though it were not
Born of the both of me, where aggregates of thought cradle the circling song
And if I move from my sick bed, as surely the death of death, another morning flower appears
Though late in the day, it will open and close, the infinitesimals of angels and parrot fish bloom.
Yet I dream of that door, that is unhinged, to all those who find it glacial in their path
The folly of walking to no other side, stumbling into a barefaced sideling glance
And there, laddering birds, cloistered like creeping vines, sequined silver
Where wingless they march into eternity, the mirror that takes them back.
The blue of the beyond that chimney sweeps the gold
Joual of the jasmine, the rainbow colours of the windswept eye
The azure-winged magpie fluttering, crayoning the metallic taste in our mouth
Knowing the new millennia is the Trojan horse of the old, and older still, the sling of it unborn.
Jeff Bien is an internationally acclaimed poet, musician, and highly regarded meditation and consciousness teacher. His work has been published, translated, and performed in more than sixty countries. He is the author of numerous books and his poetry has been the recipient of many awards. His latest collection, In a Time of No Song, with an introduction by A.F. Moritz, was released by Exile Editions. Bien’s inaugural CD received fraternal greetings from Leonard Cohen and accolades from other major international artists.