"It is only a door."

Prospective Immigrants Please Note
--by Adrienne Rich

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.
____________

Young me thought that going through the door guaranteed some sort of fulfillment--artistic, spiritual, romantic.

Now I understand why people choose not to go through the door and even think they are quite sensible not to.
It is only a door.
No guarantees.

Also I no longer think I know who does and who does not go through the door, or even where or what the door is.
I know I do not know.
Which is a weight off my shoulders.

________________

Today would have been my mother's 77th birthday.
Did she go through the door or not?

She looks at me doubly,
and I look back and live with what happened.