Sandra Heska King

daring to open doors

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doors: a photo and poetry prompt

January 16, 2014 By Sandra Heska King

door hoosier bw

Doors, real and imagined. They invite and shut out. They can lead to life or to death, to the past and to the future, to longing or loneliness, to hope and sometimes despair. Doors handle memories and opportunities.

These are just some of the doors I saw last year–in my home, in my yard, in my neighborhood, in another town, and even in another country.

What stories (or poetry) might you find in these photos?

door barn

door bluebird

door rat cupboard bw

door church

door haiti

door barn2

door haiti2

door rat cupboard2 bw

door hawk

door haiti3

door hoosier2

The above door (and the one at the top of the page) belongs to a Hoosier cabinet that’s been in the family for years. I wrote this poem about it a couple years ago in response to a writing exercise suggested by L.L. Barkat in her book, God in the Yard. 

The cabinet belonged to my husband’s great-grandparents, Frank and Carrie. He remembers that it sat in the big farmhouse and then the little one and then in the back kitchen of our current house where his mother did laundry. He does not remember it after this house was moved to its present spot until his parents gave it to us to restore. It very likely found a place in the barn for a few years along with the “rat cupboard,” which was used to store cow medicines (and now holds kitchen staples and supplies.)

The Hoosier Cabinet

God, are you in the Hoosier cabinet

the porcelain white and cool

top rolled and history frosted,

a passage to another time and place?

Are you engrained in memories and

moved from house to house

to house to barn

to house to house

restored and cornered in my heart.

How did you begin?

Where do you call home?

What stories do you store?

door old

Still seeking doors,

Sandy

Joining Tweetspeak Poetry’s Photo Play and Poetry Prompt

on Doors and Passageways.

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Filed Under: Blog, photography, poetry, stories and reflections

Comments

  1. SimplyDarlene says

    January 16, 2014 at 10:23 pm

    I like the B&W image with the girls best – oh, the stories it tells…

    kids playing in the background?
    bowls, empty or full; eating or making?
    a chicken on the stoop?
    does a breeze blow through?

    So, so much in that one image.

    Blessings.

    • Sandra Heska King says

      January 16, 2014 at 10:42 pm

      That’s at the orphanage in Haiti.

      I see kind of a in? out? A kind of confinement versus freedom.

      And your good eyes caught the chicken. 🙂

  2. Diane W. Bailey says

    January 17, 2014 at 12:53 pm

    I don’t know about writing a poem, but i could surely write about the two girls in the doorway. Those eyes….

    Love your poetry, Sandra!

    • Sandra Heska King says

      January 18, 2014 at 3:36 pm

      They do have a story…

  3. Martha Orlando says

    January 17, 2014 at 1:24 pm

    Your words sing in this poem, Sandy. I feel I’ve known that cabinet all my life. 🙂

    • Sandra Heska King says

      January 18, 2014 at 3:37 pm

      I do love this piece, Martha. There’s such a sense of connection with the past moving into the present and the future.

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