Thursday Doors, 25/4/19 & Day 25: Five-sense doors of Bernardin

I’m not sure if the prompt-givers are aware of it, but last year almost to the day they asked for a five-sense poem as well. Last year sister provided just the door for it. Let’s continue from there.

It was Thursday too because I posted the photo below, sent by my sister, for Thursday Doors. Dan commented that he couldn’t believe that I was posting only one door that week but he understood when he saw it. It stands alone.

Photo: Klu

First, let me repeat last year’s poem, written to this photo. I vowed to visit this place above Bernardin on the Slovenian coast myself as soon as possible, not so much to take my own photo but just to see it with my own eyes.

To read my poem for today you will have to bear through two attempts to locate this door.

Visit 
(repeat from last year)

You gave me the door,
I return you the house.
Same time next year
it’s yours and I visit.

The door is the same, I see.
The way in must be around.
I’ll follow my senses.
No, the other way.

The passing impulse is
to touch the roots.
They are real,
just as I’ve thought.

The scent is next:
faraway spices, Asian feast.
Taste buds alert,
warming up for later.

Yellow dusts and brown mixtures
vegetables, sea fruits,
spaghetti of five treasures,
how Italians never do it.

The sound is the last to reach me.
Johnny Cash
doing his thing with the throat.
Either that or Vasja is here yet.
 

---

To explain this last: Vasja, our rock star friend, has a beautiful voice and one time I was climbing the stairs to my sister’s apartment marvelling at Johnny Cash sounds drifting through the door and when she opened it, it was Vasja singing rather than Johnny.

But back to the door. I meant it: I went to search for it in July on my first day back in Piran. It takes a lovely stroll by the sea to reach Hotel Laguna in Bernardin. Just climb the stairs from there, sister had said.

• 

  I heard every barking bestia on the way.

• 

  I noticed every door.

• 

  This church by Hotel Vile Park surprised me (“Vile” means “Villas”).

• 

  A door in door.

• 

  This villa had bolted doors and windows and I found it sad. Such a great location!

• 

  Neither this man nor the hotel parking attendant knew of any pretty gates nearby.

• 

  The same church below and the car on the roof.

• 

  After strolling some more I settled for gelato because it’s “gravely good for your health”.

• 

  An entrance utterly atypical for Slovenia.

I had to contact my sister and admit my failure to find the gate. She equipped me with more micro-location info and off I went one week later to give it another try.

• 

  This wall would make every door pretty and then they chose this.

• 

  Hotel Laguna in Bernardin must have been a joy to design.

• 

  I like this parking the most. And the font and the lettering the least.

• 

  What do you see? I see a man with a dog sitting on his head.

• 

  By what sister said, the gate should be right here.

• 

  Then I passed this growth. Waitaminute…

• 

  This is it! No wonder I missed it the first time. It’s overgrown compared to April when sis took her photo.

• 

  I returned past that sad empty villa with perfect light.

• 

  Past the church reflected in Hotel Vile Park.

• 

  Past the perfect door for a sunset.

• 

  Margarita came to mind. Mind the water for the dog.

• 

  Ah, yes. Thank you for this view, sister. Cin cin!

• 

  The last door of the day.

I will let sister have the last word, I mean image. By November I pretty much forgot this episode and then she sends me this trio:

• 

  She spotted the sad villa too.

• 

  The house above the gate which she likes.

• 

  And the gate, pretty again for her and by her. Obviously this is her door, not mine.

Last three photos by Klu.

---

And now finally, today’s poem. Thank you for reaching this part.

Challenge 25: “Write a poem that:

• Is specific to a season
• Uses imagery that relates to all five senses
• Includes a rhetorical question.” (You will note that I almost forgot about this bit.)

Is this neat or what? 

Heightened senses:
 a summer spying game is on.
 I turn into a panting, drooling, sniffing
 dog. It goes up. My mind tries to  
 align reality with expectations,
 my body follows.
 We 
succeed.
 The 
reward
 is a  
 drink 
 for  
 each
 and  
 a sunset  
 for all.
I lick the salt 
from the glass, 
the dog laps at his water, the waves lap 
at the beach, sunset colours surround us 
and I believe in this summer. 

For Norm Frampton’s Thursday Doors challenge.

and for Day 25 of NaPoWriMo