This is a prayer for a door— Sarah Crowley Chestnut

“Brief marker between everywhere and somewhere“

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Sarah Crowley Chestnut lives and works at L’Abri Fellowship in Southborough, Massachusetts with her husband and two children. She keeps a small vegetable garden, a sourdough starter and a messy desk. Sarah’s poetry has appeared in CRUX, Red Rock Literary Journal, LETTERS, Christian Century, and elsewhere.

This is a prayer for a door—

by Sarah Crowley Chestnut

Not grand, nothing with wrought 
Knocker, not even a little button
To buzz the presence of the outside in.
 
This is a prayer for the oldest of doors—
Mere tent flap, bare threshold,
Brief marker between
Everywhere and somewhere:
 
Mouth of a rabbit’s hole. Parted 
Canopy of branches to reveal a nest.  
Unraveling of the pounding in my chest 
As you pull back the curtain between 
 
What is dust and what is breath.

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Photo by Filip Kominik on Unsplash