twenty-four doors

Maybe it's a teacher thing, or maybe it's just me:  I am inordinately excited by the arrival of a new rug for my classroom.  (We've made do with unsatisfactory ruglike arrangements for two months.)  Our meeting area--where so much talking and listening, teaching and learning go on--is defined by The Carpet, so how the carpet looks and feels is important.

Isn't my new rug beautiful?  It's so beautiful I had to write a poem about it.

Twenty-Four Doors

The new rug in my room

is one inch deep,

a layer of soil

made of snowflake and moon.

I lie down by a river
of lightning and leaves.
My arms span a sky
like a mine full of gold;
turtles in treetops nibble my toes.
A cloudburst of apples

showers my head.

I tickle sharks

at the rainbow’s end,

feed the bluebird of gravity

acorns and sun.

They can keep me inside,

but the rug on my floor has

twenty-four doors that lead

into the wild.

Heidi Mordhorst 2011

all rights reserved


Head to Jama's Alphabet Soup for the usual smorgasbord of poetry dishes, autumn edition, and don't forget to stop by again on Tuesday evening if you'd like a poetry challenge!