Doors Open and Close

Two gnomes at the gate of the Matthaei Botanical Garden.

During the pandemic, the gates of the inner garden at Matthaei were closed, and no one could enter. It was a wonderful relief when these doors reopened. Now we can enjoy the gardens, which are beautiful in all seasons. At Christmas, the gates are guarded by gnomes, to whom I've given some wine to drink in my altered photograph.

All four gnomes guarding the gate (without the wine)

A number of bloggers who create interesting arts and crafts are currently producing images using the theme of doors opening and closing. I've found this a theme appropriate in so many ways, especially as the beginning of each year is always seen as one door closing and another opening -- going back to the Roman door god Janus who had two faces looking forward and backward. I found the following poem on the same theme.

Doors opening, closing on us

By Marge Piercy

Maybe there is more of the magical

in the idea of a door than in the door

itself. It’s always a matter of going

through into something else. But

while some doors lead to cathedrals

arching up overhead like stormy skies

and some to sumptuous auditoriums

and some to caves of nuclear monsters

most just yield a bathroom or a closet.

Still, the image of a door is liminal,

passing from one place into another

one state to the other, boundaries

and promises and threats. Inside

to outside, light into dark, dark into

light, cold into warm, known into

strange, safe into terror, wind

into stillness, silence into noise

or music. We slice our life into

segments by rituals, each a door

to a presumed new phase. We see

ourselves progressing from room

to room perhaps dragging our toys

along until the last door opens

and we pass at last into was.

--https://poets.org/poem/doors-opening-closing-us