doors: a photo and poetry prompt

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?

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?

Still seeking doors,

Sandy

Joining Tweetspeak Poetry’s Photo Play and Poetry Prompt

on Doors and Passageways.