from More or Less Love Poems by Diane di Prima
from More or Less Love Poems
Diane di Prima23
you think
its easy
opening doors
in januaryshit man
you think its easy
opening doors
MARGINALIA
1.
Every door has always been a question. How many times have you stood there, hand hovering, knowing what it costs to turn the knob.
2.
You think it’s easy. As if anything about love could be easy. As if the heart doesn’t require its own particular courage, every single time.
3.
Opening doors in January. Opening doors in July. Opening doors when you’re twenty, forty, sixty. The difficulty doesn’t diminish. If anything, we just get better at pretending it does.
4.
What’s on the other side. I’m always scared shitless standing before every door of my life.
5.
You think it’s easy. Nobody who’s done it thinks it’s easy. But look at us all, January after January, opening what needs to be opened. Despite everything. Because of everything.
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Selected Poems, 1956-1975 by Diane di Prima, published by North Atlantic Books, 1975.
ABOUT DIANE DI PRIMA
Diane di Prima was born August 6, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. She attended Hunter College High School in New York City, where she began writing. In 1958, di Prima published her first book of poetry, This Kind of Bird Flies Backwards (Totem Press). Three years later, di Prima cofounded the New York Poets Theatre and became the coeditor of the mimeograph newsletter The Floating Bear. In 2009, she was named the poet laureate of San Francisco. Di Prima died on October 25, 2020, in San… (more)
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