"Portal"/"Door"

       Daughter Elizabeth today put me on to the poetry of Jim Harrison.  In a poem called "Doors," Jim takes the doors in our lives to task because you're either inside or outside a door.  "Nature has portals rather than doors," he says.

       "Portal" suggests a way in, an entrance, and is inviting; a "door" can be either open or closed.  The Indo-European root of "portal" checks with this.  It is "per," meaning "forward" or "through" and with further verbal implications of "leading" and "passing over," "passage" through a "gate."

       Jim Harrison's poem seals the distinction with imagery:

              The sky is a door never closed to us.
              The sun and moon aren't doorknobs.

                            (from "Doors" by Jim Harrison, Songs of Unreason                                                           Copper Canyon Press, 2012)