Through many doors it's been–through
that first into light, afraid, crying
for fear, for air, no going back.
Then other doors: the one where shadows
waited like night, the one nobody
opened when I knocked, and the one where somebody
did. (It was over a cliff and I fell)
One time there wasn't any door; I turned to look
where I had been–only that? Only
those meaningless windows leading down one
by one to the faint small beginning?
Past the middle of life, and nothing
done–but a voice came on: "I am
the door," someone said. I closed my eyes;
whatever I touched led on.
-William Stafford from: The Way It Is–New and Selected Poems