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“there is always the risk / of remembering your name”

  • Categories: Poetry

Prospective Immigrants Please Note

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.

— Adrienne Rich

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2 Responses

  1. Isn’t remembering one’s name what it’s all about? “I AM” — He said — it’s all in The Name. Jesus = Yeshua = One Who Saves. Remembering who we are in Christ. My name means ‘a pearl’. If I remember that, I remember the story of the pearl of great price. I remember I am loved.