Thomas Festa
Every Road Begins with a Door
flax field blooming
a door stands in the middle
nothing siloed
Wait out the gray day, it’ll pass. Though the house grows smaller in the rearview, it isn’t diminished but instead abounds, germinates inside, a hungry angel swinging on your breath. Or the incessant fury of the carpenter bee burrowing into a wooden window frame in that first apartment after the separation, boring out brood chambers to stuff with eggs, cram with pollen for its grubs. Out that window, the Wallkill River—how swiftly the walls toppled, one day.
same river twice
its taut shine
slow and fast
I drive through the old neighborhood in the early spring rain, past déjà vus forgotten. As I pass our first house, the little Cape Cod, the one built of memories caves in. Today I sweep the ceiling clean of stars, slight the castle in clearest view.
prayer plant
leaves torn from a library book
nib wet with sky
Note: The title is taken from Lao-Tzu’s Taoteching, translated by Red Pine, revised edition (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), p. 3, comment on the commentary on the first chapter in the Shuowen.
About the Author
Thomas Festa is a professor of English at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and author of a chapbook of poems, Earthen (Finishing Line Press). His haibun “Skyline” (The Haibun Journal 4.2, 2022) was longlisted for the first Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun. His haibun “Intern” (Poetry Pea Journal and podcast) was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.