Experience

A hallway of doors
Each one closed
Upon a life experience
That awaits us
In darkened rooms
Our pockets fashioned
Of curiosity and longing
Hold a growing fist of keys
Markers of experience
Doors that have been opened
And others yet to be

Happiness and sadness
Anger and fear
Pride and jealousy
Embarrassment and joy
All ingredients of life
Colors of lighted rooms
Each door unlocked
By an open heart
That fashioned keys
On a cutting wheel of longing
Pockets that jingle with intention
To use if we choose

To open a door is easy
Once we hold its key
The rooms rest quiet and unlit
So that all we can do is smell
The universe that lives behind them
Then choose to enter or leave
Each threshold is the same
Fashioned of a wood
Hewed from the forest
Of our own vulnerability
Each door leads
To a new and deeper place

Some of the rooms may lie
Beyond our own mortality
Yet if we find the courage
To grasp the lesson of that place
To know the truth that lives within that room
It will belong to us forever
And travel with us always
To light the world we walk in
Some experiences are pleasant
Some are not but each one shapes us
As a chisel fashions rock

How many keys
Our longing fashions
How many doors
We dare to open
And how many rooms
We choose to enter
Is always up to us