A door opens into morning,
and stillness rushes in~
not silence, but a soft rearranging
of what the world wants to show.
Light slips across the floor
like a thought finding its shape,
and the trees outside lean closer,
as if they’ve been waiting
for someone to notice
their patient, breathing presence.
I step through the threshold
without knowing the lesson,
only sensing that something
has shifted its weight~
a small, exacting invitation
to walk further into the day
and let it reveal
what I’m ready to hold.
Once, upon a word,
one thought stirred within silence
on a quiet dawn—
sleeping inception woke up
once was becoming something.
One morning, somewhere,
at the edge of what might be,
at just one past one—
two's a penny, a coin toss—
now suddenly one's a word.
On this very day,
at this very one moment,
lies what's now and then,
see-sawing with pending things—
How else should a story start?
Written: July 19, 2026 for a contest sponsored by Margarita Lillico
*****************
We have reached that threshold line,
Where split links and ethics entwine.
Can we mend the crack of the past?
And throw the stones of contrast?
Or do we strike a sudden spark,
To light the waters in the dark?
To vamp the fence takes patient hands,
To heal the shifts in broken lands.
But burnt piers moor the shore in place,
No more feet may roam back to pace.
One choice puts back a time spun,
The past, revived, but bridges undone.
Don't stay inside dwelling on your misery.
It is a sinking hole of darkness.
Step out into the world of nature.
Its cosmic energy is bountiful and nurturing.
Soon you will be regenerated.
You'll get a new lease on life.
You'll find needed courage to carry on.
AP: 2nd place 2026
We pull up to the table with our heavy, soiled clothes,
Still carrying the friction of the paths our ego chose.
The malice and the whispers, the masks we try to wear,
We strip them off like rags at the doorway of His care.
And like a crying infant in the quiet of the night,
We reach out for the nourishment that sets our vision right.
Not tethered to humanity, nor fed on the algorithms trash,
But drinking deep the living Word that survives the lightning flash.
It’s milk to make us gentle, it’s meat to make us strong,
It turns our bitter bickering into a quiet song.
We pull the anchor from the world, its panic and its pride,
To measure life by love that’s high and deep and long and wide.
For happiness is not a prize we chase across the floor;
It catches up to us from behind as we enter through His door.
He shows the path of life to us, where our daily worries fade,
Restored inside the presence of the One by whom we’re made.
I thought graduation would feel like an ending.
Instead,
it feels like standing in a doorway,
not ready to leave
And unable to stay.
Walk toward darkness and light will follow.
Hallowed grounds, a passage always taken solo.
This state of being has no consciousness nor desire,
rather an unattainable attachment, from the true sire.
This blinded birth, without a mother, a farce indeed,
to allocate wisdom without worry, now all in need.
But from these lonely shadows somehow a halo is summoned,
toward this beam it draws us to what we all have in common.
The consciousness and desire,
travel the road that is higher,
to become an unattached attainable soul
where we all rest in solace, peace and whole.
On the edge of something
language hadn’t been invented yet
to describe what I was seeing,
the horizon whispered secrets,
color drenched in honey and twilight,
where shadows danced like old friends,
smiles and sighs mingled
in the liquid air.
The sky was a canvas,
not of stars, but of ideas,
shapes that bent and folded
like dreams never quite dreamed,
a tapestry woven with possibility.
I reached out, fingertips grazing
the pulse of something new,
unfurling,
tender like a first breath,
heavy with silence,
swelling with wonder.
Time stretched in soft arcs,
each moment a petal unfurling,
the world a chorus of visions,
where mountains cradled the sun,
and rivers carried laughter
in their swift embrace.
I stood, suspended,
on the cusp of discovery,
heart racing in rhythm
with the melody of the unseen,
the unsaid.
In that space, I was lost
and found,
a witness to the unspoken,
to the edge of language,
waiting to be born.
A door slides open~
not with sound,
but with a feeling,
as if the air itself has stepped aside.
Shadows lengthen into questions,
and the ordinary
tilts just enough
to make the mind lean closer.
Here, clocks forget their manners,
logic loosens its collar,
and a single choice can echo sideways
into a world almost like ours~
but not quite.
Somewhere, a narrator watches,
half-smile, half-warning,
inviting me to cross the line
between what was and what is.
And for a moment,
I stand in that thin, electric hush~
the place where the present wavers,
and the past asks,
What is a remote?
?The earthly candle flickers in the gloom,
And shadows dance upon the silent tomb;
I leave this cage of clay, this weary strand,
To seek my Home within a fairer land.
I go to sleep beneath the Master’s wing,
And wait the summons of the Eternal King.
?But 'tis no dreamless night that waits me there,
No hollow silence in the chilling air;
I wake within His halls, a soul reborn,
To greet the glory of a boundless morn.
My Master’s house—the next, the greater stage,
Beyond the reach of time and mortal age.
?So seize the spark while yet the heart-strings beat,
Before the dust and spirit part and meet;
For if the next life shines so fierce and bright,
How sacred is the struggle of this night?
Live! For the soul shall soon its flight begin,
Where life ends not, and Heaven’s gates pull in.
As at the opening of a hidden bistro,
the moment before stepping onto a narrow side path, cliff-shaped—
waking the color-warmed buttons
of clothes that slept, cradled on a hanger,
standing before a mirror that flows toward you,
the tremor of seeing myself in your eyes.
The first path simmers a cloud-loosened sea into a latte,
flowing toward the distant beloved…
I want to dive deep into my soul,
to search for answers profound and unspoken,
answers that stir awakening within,
that unsettle complacency and breathe
new life
into the quiet chambers of my being.
I yearn to travel beyond familiar horizons,
to embrace new ways of thinking,
to unlearn what no longer serves
and relearn the courage to see differently.
Each obstacle blocking my growth
becomes a threshold to cross,
each fear a lesson demanding honesty.
I press forward—sometimes faltering,
yet resolute—toward a higher calling,
where becoming matters more than arriving,
and the journey itself reshapes my soul.
the birds don't
break on panes of sky—
they break on the
illusion of passage
the threshold of the unseen
on thinking
glass is sky
on faith
that what seems
open is
***
does heaven
kill by being there
or seeming to be?
transparency is
also trap
the open is what kills them
Rumi Quotes
Sponsored by: Sotto Poet
Contest Judged: 10/29/2025 1:40:00 PM
( 3rd Place )
Written: October 1, 2025
Rumi's Quote Inspired:
--"the wound is the place where the light enters you"--
I lugged silence like a stone
tucked away from all sight.
Pain etched itself into my days
and left footprints...
I could no longer claim.
Then a sliver of morning
crept into the narrow crack
inside me.
Soft as a whisper
warm as returning rain.
The mark I buried deep.
The emptiness I sidestepped…
became a threshold.
From the opening, light flowed,
calm, healing;
not to strike
but to illuminate and repair.
Its presence sank into my bones
flowing where sorrow had settled.
Turning every scar into a map
of where I had been
and where I could go.
Now I keep my chest open,
not to protect, not to perform.
But for the quiet truth
that what breaks us…
also makes room
for what saves us.
At the threshold of tomorrow,
Where commitment meets the dawn,
Understanding whispers softly,
In a master class of hope reborn.
A moment of not knowing,
Yet calm before the storm—
Two sides agree in silence,
As futures take on form.
Thanksgiving for the journey,
Each step both dignified and rare,
Moving through the shadows,
Barely grasping what is fair.
Together we will flourish,
On this path, our hearts will tread,
For every threshold we cross,
Is a new world to be fed.
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