“A Door” by W.S. Merwin

Published in: 

The Atlantic, 1971

This is a place where a door might be
here where I am standing
In the light outside all the walls

there would be a shadow here
all day long
and a door into it
where now there is me

and somebody would come and knock
on this air
long after I have gone
and there in front of me
a life would open

The Merwin Conservancy's logo; image displays a palm frond oriented vertically