The Steps \ Wabi Sabi – The Green Door

Nancy: Yes, the walk to the well, the weight of the bucket, the climb back up the hill, have compensations difficult to describe but very real.

The Steps

Down the hill, at the well,

four steps have been carved into the icy white stone

of winter.  Four deep steps.

I take the buckets and go.

When I was a child, I was taken to

a famous building.  Later I felt foolish

when they asked me what I had liked best.

The steps.  The white marble cupped and worn

by the passing feet.  They laughed, and I never

mentioned it again, but I remembered the cool sound

in my mind, of stone wearing under the feet.

I think of those steps now, and of the deep wells

of the desert, where the steps are cut

into red or gold sandstone, and generations

of women have worn smooth patterns of descent and climb.

Four steps, the splash of the bucket, dip, lift.

Is it not more wonderful than monuments

that a child could see the feet of strangers in the stones,

and that I burnish, slowly, the heavy cover

and tile of the well?  Is it not beautiful,

to see the dark well water fill with sky?

Alan: There is a comfort, a sadness and mystery in something as simple as an old door nearing the end of its service.

Wabi Sabi – The Green Door

even more worn

more faded now

than in the photo –

flat December dawn

that yet proved luminous –

boards softer

more gapped, warped,

green almost gone

from the grain –

still opens out

into marvelous air

out from shadow

within