I Stand at the Gate

Prose poem written for a collaboration with artist Elizabeth Wickland for The Artistree Project and presented at Fieldmoot in 2022. The poem was constructed to fit within the arched shape of the physical art piece.

i
stand
at the gate.

it has been shut
since the days of my first parents
when they were driven out of the living garden
into the wasteland of brambles and thorns.
there are words carved into great arched gate posts
alongside ornate petals, unfaded with time,
bidding friends to enter. but i am not a friend.
i cannot speak a word good enough, true enough,
for the majestic gate to open. i am left in the outer darkness,
peeping desperately through the gaps in the hinges. and yet…

…the stone walls and steadfast gate cannot contain
the life bursting from within. there are echoes of true words,
like the sweet scent of unseen flowers,
seeping through gaps and drifting over the high walls.

i chase them, feasting on the vapors and delighting in the echoes.
even in this wasteland, i begin to know the shape of growing things.
a pine—tall and straight—rises in my mind’s eye from the seed of the strong, sharp scent. there, too, is the sketch of the breeze ruffling the gardenia trees, lifting their heavy sweetness and bearing it to me like a cup of ambrosia.

each taste sustains me, yet leaves me craving more. the more echoes i savor, the more words i seek—a desperate search for truths etched on pressed fibers
who still hold faint memories of breathing sunlight. the more i sip and smell
and imagine, the more i long for that gate to open for me.

but it will not, for i cannot speak the true word of a friend. and yet…

…the velvety scents of cedar and gardenias linger around me as i raise my eyes from the dried leaves. the echoes of bright mint and sharp pine follow me,
filling my lungs and calling me back again and again to the garden’s borders through another page, another poem, another story. i circle the walls until i stand in front of the gate once more. as i stand there—wishing to be a friend,
longing to see the beauty within—i make a shocking discovery:
the true word was never mine to speak.

the True Word—whose blood speaks a better word than abel’s—speaks for me:
“greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.”

as i gape, speechless, the Word gilds the arched gate posts crimson,
and the carved petals burst into bloom. the foundations tremble,
and the golden doors of the gate swing wide. abundant life spills out,
curling up the posts like joyful ivy veined with sunlight.

the Tree of Life awaits me in the center of the verdant garden,
and i run to him, leaving the echoes fluttering in my wake
as my feet race over familiar paths strewn with pine and mint and gardenias.

never again shall the gate be shut, for the True Word has spoken.