by Howard Nichols

Created on: January 31, 2009

I look through the window.
I see the light, and wish I could feel
the warmth of the fire, and hear the music.
I want to go inside.
But it's a building with no doors

I scrape the frost
from the window to get a better look
at what I can't comprehend.
But I can't learn the truth.
You see, there are no doors.

Walking. I trudge mindlessly,
beside endless stone walls, simply hoping.

Hoping to join in with the others.
Who was the architect
that built it with no doors?

It's enormous, forbidding granite.
Big enough to hold everyone
that knows the big secret.
The walls stretch off into the distance.
I go on, but there are no doors.

I've been walking for so long.
Must have been all the way around by now.
I know I've seen that tree before.
Aren't those my tracks?
Why are there no doors?

Someone is there, standing
next to a window. I tap, tap again.
They turn with a frown, but it's one-way glass.
Laughter reclaims their attention.
Do they know that there are no doors?

More tracks in the snow.
Others like me perhaps, searching.
Stumbling figures, ahead and behind.
Surely one of them must be willing.
To work together to find a door.

Sometimes I hurry to catch up,
or wait for another to catch up.
Once in a while we even walk together
for a shining, hopeful day.
But when I turn to them with a smile,
they're already gone, through the doors
that I can't see.

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