Open Gate - New Poem

Dear Ones, Today I am sharing my poetry writing practice and the results of it from today - as well as a personal sharing. AND I am inviting you to notice what framework you are looking at your life through - to get it conscious for yourself. Today’s poetry prompt was an open gate, a metaphor that allowed this poem and to come through. It could just as well be an open window overlooking Florence like this photo that Jonathan took in 2019! This was our last trip before ‘shelter-in-place’ was a thing. We haven’t really travelled since then and things have been on the rough side for us for quite a bit. So I am noticing that gates, windows and doors are showing up a LOT. I am still not sure what the open gate really meant for me today but it is in the exploring of it that that poems sometimes spring out. I am still on the despair and desire theme too. Maybe you will write a poem in response or your own? That is another practice, reading any poem and then using something in it, even one word or a feeling as a jumping in place. Sending love for your day, Shiloh Sophia ~~~ Open Gate Between the apple tree and the dappled blue spruce There is an open gate If you should find yourself there on the edge of things pause with respect before just walking on through On the other side of the gate you can never be sure what you may find waiting Usually it is something you have wanted to avoid and you just can’t anymore and despair is Just. Right. There. OR You find something you have desired all your life and suddenly there it is… Only now you aren’t sure you want what you thought you wanted before That is because who you were before just isn’t who you are now Before. Before is the place where you didn’t know just what love would ask of you when you agreed to share yourself in exchange for a chance at a heart filled with impossible light Light that cannot be contained That desire you have been nursing was before you needed spectacles to read the evening poetry by firelight Sometimes if you look into the flames with a soft and sleepy gaze You can even see the open gate and your despair or desire winking and twinkling through This opening is not a sentence or a summons The open gate is finally coming to the awareness of choice When you gain awareness of choice you garner favor with the poets We all want that! Oh… all the times you thought you didn’t have choice when you actually did can sometimes be a stunning reckoning but then you hear your lover’s voice calling from the other room and you realize you would risk it all again and again and again Their heart is the opening and there is no gate needed at all between you You just must remember who they are while not forgetting who you have become and how they have become more of who they are No one said there would be a clear path through the wild garden of berries and bramble bruises and skinned knees on the way to the open gate The open gate is awareness of choice and the acceptance of love and the writing of this poem for you Right here between the guardians of the apple tree and the dappled spruce This love is Shiloh Sophia Get full access to Tea with the Muse at teawiththemuse.substack.com/subscribe