Central Virginia Journal: Poem: "The Unlocked Door"

“The Unlocked Door”

I had dwelt for many years, within the warm and welcoming hall

But life like a flame’s fickle flicker of felicity is filled with false fortune

So on that night, a dreadful eve of shadowed fears, there came the knock

A lonely knock upon an unlocked door

Deep and foreboding the first sound swept across the room

The warmth of hearth and home with haste did suddenly flee

A sudden sense of forbidding at which my heart beat slowed then froze

A fear that burned like poison flowed through my every vein.

No veneer of safety remained, slight were my defenses

I turned timidly toward the portal, which reverberated with a second knock

Slim was the defense, now so plainly seen,

no longer could I hide,

beyond that unlocked door stood the oft dreaded fateful call

for now time stood still and knocked upon an unlocked door.

Hand stretched forth then withdrawn,

a mighty battle fought within, I struggled movement to impart

debt stored and long forgotten awaits it long avoided accounting.

The third knock came like thunder, it echoed in my ears

I knelt and prayed to Jesus “please take away this fear”

Confusion doubt and panic all wed within my soul,

I slowly turned the handle, the motion like a dream.

And then the door was open as I peered into the night,

the door step was quite empty, devoid of any life

My shaking hands betrayed me as I sought to calm myself,

then weakly came the pitiful plea.

“Is anybody there?”

The world was clothed in darkness,

an ocean bleak and black in which no hope was certain

for calm had fled the scene

I closed the floor most quickly and I took a long deep breath

It must have been the wind, I said in short to reassure myself

My chair so inviting and secure was near within my reach

And then with sudden stabbing pain that sound so deadly and so cold

Came echoing in my ears again and I began to feel so old.

I flung the portal open in anticipation of my end

I found the step was glowing

With a light that calmed my fear,

for on the steep was sitting an amazing sight for sure

A gilded cage so golden and a bird within it sang

Sweet songs of far past childhood, familiar and so fine

I was swept in the moment, divinity at my door

Central Virginia Journal