The Village With No Doors Poem by Peter Verbica

A voluble friend of mine
has photographed hundreds of doors.

Belize.
Micronesia.
Even Tibet

where air and wood
and liberty are rare

and strong tea is served with
pungent Yak butter
and toasted barley.

Most of the shots
have been taken, he tells me,
with a screw mount lens camera

his parents bought him
before the war.

Germans are ingenious,
he assures me,
describing the aperture ring
and range finder.

He wants to put the photos
in a hard-bound book
with an embossed leather cover.

I can't fault him for his obsession.

People collect images of
stranger things.

So a book of doors is an idea
which I can stomach.

The temple, cathedral, mosque and
synagogue doors seem to be
the sturdiest.

Rusted bolts.
Hammered bronze clasps.
Knots of iron.

But it is the village with no doors
which I find more curious:

The lore of a slab trapped in
the roots of a tree,
washing ashore after a monsoon.

Legend has it
that the elder had a dream
and took it as a sign that a shrine
should be built without doors.

And, so the homes followed suit.

The idea seemed so strange
at first.

Like horses without teeth.
Or plants without leaves.

Thieves, it is said, are few,
and are struck blind
or swim out to sea,

the madness of their guilt
driving them to drown
beyond the kelp beds.

At least, so claimed the elderly lady
wearing sandals,
trying to sell me a sugary treat.


["The Village with No Doors" first appeared in the Sunspot Literary Journal,2019]