Open

by Zinta Aistars

The Open Window by Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)

The window is open. The door is open. My eyes are open. The day is open. The kitchen is open. The jar of coffee beans, fragrance open from the grind, is open. The milk carton is open. The pot, steam rising, is open. My mouth is open. My throat is open. My belly is open and hungry. The eggshell is open, cracked jagged edges, and spilled yellow as sunshine across the hot pan. The cupboard is open. The faucet is open, spilling, spilling, gushing cool water.

The orange peel uncurls and splits in a soft swirl and opens to bright fruit, bright on the tongue.

My ears are open. Bird beaks are open, open with song, fillling an open morning with song, trilling and whistling an open melody. The green of the garden is open to sky, an open blue sky, brilliant and blue blue blue to an open horizon, open and endless and forever and on.

My hand is open. Palm pink and upward, open and waiting for whatever will fill it, open and waiting, resting on the kitchen table.

My lap is open. Old chow pup, mouth open and long pink and black tongue lolling, rests his graying muzzle on my thigh, eyes open wide and gazing upward for my open hand to rest on his soft head.

My robe falls open, breeze cool on warm skin, awake and awake and suddenly open to be touched.

My book is open, pages lifting in the breeze from the open window, open sentences waiting, waiting for my open eyes and open mind to an open ending for a neverending story, the next chapter open as this day opens onto the next.

Sunday is open, unscheduled for chores, although they await, open to be done. Black calico cat opens her pink mouth with a wide MEow, open to the scratch behind one open ear, open to the scratch behind the other open ear, triangle chin lining up with my open, outstretched hand.

Sunday is open. An open day. Open to possibilities. Open to anything, anything, anything at all, open to surprise. Open to the daydream. Open all day long. Open to chance. Open to mistake. Open to forgive. Open soft, open hard, open wide. Open to wander. Open to wonder. Open to question. Open to as much openness as I can stand, as I can dare, as I can take in one open swallow. Split open. Open and waiting to be filled.

The window is open, curtain lifting to open its folds to the cool morning breeze and billow like an open sail across an open sea of Sundays and the lazy open-ended dream. Sunday sailing on the open sea.

My heart opens, opens like a door, like an old door open on squeaking and rusty hinges, like a fist open to release a sacred secret inside, open tender, open fierce, a house of mirrors opening one image upon another in an open tunnel to nowhere, anywhere, a stairway to heaven with pearly gates open, and hell with a field of open and eternal fire, and the occasional open limbo of indecision with its open bottom for freefall, open to cliffside and abyss and valley and bridge, hot like white coal over an open flame, open like ripe fruit, open to be astonished, open to joy and tears and sighs and gasps, open to silence, open to be empty and to be emptied, open to light as to shadows, open to be exhumed from the dead and dying and back into the ferociously living, open and waiting, open to unknowing, open to be known, open to be held, rising to what has opened, the waiting and open arms, the day opening without limit or boundary, and open to take it in, give it back again, open and alive.