Its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there.
– Revelation to John 21:25, NRSV

Go figure. I was wrong.
I always imagined, yawning wide,
the gates of hell, while heaven’s gates
admitted just a few.

But shuttered gates are not
an attribute of paradise.

A poem/prayer based on Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5, the Revised Common Lectionary second reading for Year C, Sixth Sunday of Easter.

Photo of the New Gate in Jerusalem taken between 1900 and 1920 by G. Eric and Edith Matson, part of the Matson Collection at the Library of Congress. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=464832.