There Never Was a Door was composed at Hokyoji, a Zen Practice Community in Minnesota. The passage to the abandoned shed without a door echoes Nicholas Trandahl’s pilgrimage to the hidden Chapel as well as Shitou’s Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage.
There Was Never a Door
For Dokai
Minutes before the opening act
of the play of dusk
the wind
lifts the overcast curtain
and the sun
descending into the trees
lances light
through matrices of branches
out onto the meadow
and forested hills beyond Hokyoji
where shadows slash
and point to an abandoned shed
empty
except for a white plastic chair
a used bag of Miracle-Gro
and leafy vines
that have entered through the doorframe
and search over the wooden floor
on which I stand and listen
to the tuning of insects
and watch
through its two windows
fireflies
like brief planets
arrive
Bradley Samore
Bradley Samore currently lives in California and works and studies at California State University, Fresno. He has taught also in Asturias (Spain), Florida, North Carolina. His writing has been featured in various publications including West Texas Literary Review.
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