three times my life has opened

.

Three times my life has opened.

Once, into darkness and rain.

Once, into what the body carries at all times within it and starts

to remember each time it enters the act of love.

Once, to the fire that holds all.

These three are not different.

You will recognize what I am saying or you will not.

But outside my window all day a maple has stepped from her leaves

like a woman in love with winter, dropping the colored silks.

Neither are we different in what we know.

There is a door.  It opens.  Then it is closed.  But a slip of light

stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor,

or the one red leaf the snow releases in March.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from The Lives of the Heart