Threshold, 1947, gelatin silver print. Manuel Alvarez-Bravo, 1902-2002, Mexican. Chicago Museum of Art.
The photograph was taken by a Mexican.
The poet is North American. Sea to shining sea/be all you can be routine.
I am Ethiopian by blood. We are landlocked. But I am letting that pass. And I am letting pass that it is hard to take a risk if you live in a state of lesser or greater insecurity from birth to death.
And this insecurity exists on every continent for millions of people.
But I do so like the photographs of Manuel Alvarez-Bravo.
And I do understand that the poet is speaking metaphorically.
Threshold
Maggie Smith, American born 1977
You want a door you can be
on both sides of at once.
You want to be
on both sides of here
and there, now and then,
together and—(what
did we call the life
we would wish back?
The old life? The before?)
alone. But any open
space may be
a threshold, an arch
of entering and leaving.
Crossing a field, wading
through nothing
but timothy grass,
imagine yourself passing from
and into. Passing through
doorway after
doorway after doorway.