Through the Door, a Loess Hills Reverie

The poet says that when she wrote the following poem, she was not thinking about immigrants to other nations at all. Rather, she was describing "immigrant thoughts" – those hundreds of possible ways that we can view situations and experiences or other aspects of our lives.

Prospective Immigrants Please Note
by Adrienne Rich

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.

The Loess Hills Prairie Seminar offers such a door. We can engage our minds and senses as shallowly (staying on this side of the door) or as deeply as we wish. We can absorb new information, some of which will stick and other bits won't, and come away knowing more facts. We can spend the weekend breathing fresh air and appreciating the Hills, letting the silty loess soil sift through our fingers and wind up in our shoes and between our toes, observing the life and beauty contained in this special place, then go back on Monday to our jobs and families – forgetting the weekend's experience as we re-enter our "real world" of responsibilities seemingly unchanged or little changed.

Or we can go through the door. We can try something new – for me, writing and drawing and dreaming up poems of my own. These require observation – look closely! We can see how Life dances in relationships that were unnoticed before. As another writer noted, we can listen to the song of the Hills – the birds and wind and children's laughter. We can re-live the experiences of the weekend in our imagination, and let those experiences settle deep into our minds and bones, where they will indeed change us.

We can remember our name – perhaps Observer, Dreamer, Citizen of the Natural World (to borrow the phrase from Larry Stone), Human, Dancer, Singer, Artist, Story-spinner, Relationship-builder, Life, or many other possibilities. Ms. Rich knew the importance of naming. If you choose, step through the door and say, "I am _______!"