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I heard a poet say
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that doing art is a denial of self. I say
it is an inclusion of God into the self.
It is not simply a dialogue nor is it intellectual banter,
but it is being intoxicated with the fullness
of seeing God there with every thought –
in the swimming pool while treading water,
or at the hair dresser, drinking coffee, waiting for a turn.
A pebble is paradox like time travel is, or a meteor
entering the earth like a man enters a woman –
a synergy of the round and the sharp,
splicing, splitting, until more splicing and splitting, until
dependency on oxygen is born.
Speculation, lectures, ceremonies
are deeds to occupy but never to explain.
Hair like a mammoth’s – how I long to run
my knuckles through its thickness and ancestry!
I am not intimidated by people with busy days
and many different shoes. Brown
has become my favourite colour, and grey, that too
is magic. I knew this when I was young:
True intensity is subtle, is equal
in its magnitude as it is to its intricacy –
It commands exploration.
When I was young I knew God was with me
at every threshold, standing inside my flesh. Since then,
I have played with death,
held conference with death as a sister.
But even such sibling biology
cannot cull this communion I have discovered,
can’t vacuum apart indelible combined-shapes
into quarantined segregation.
I have known death’s jolts, have known
its harrowing cripple and crack, and know
it cannot revert humanity back to that interval
before God exhaled, altering the playing field,
resulting in
such a mighty fusion.
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Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
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First published in “Whisper”, June 2012
http://www.ur-online-shopping.com/poetry/archive/Archive10.htm
http://www.ur-online-shopping.com/poetry/archive/I-Heard-a-Poet-Say.shtml
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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:
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“Allison Grayhurst intertwines a potent spirituality throughout her work so that each poem is not simply a statement or observation, but a revelation that demands the reader’s personal involvement. Grayhurst’s poetic genius is profound and evident. Her voice is uniquely authentic, undeniable in its dignified vulnerability as it is in its significance,” Kyp Harness, singer/songwriter, author.
“Allison Grayhurst’s poems are like cathedrals witnessing and articulating in unflinching graphic detail the gritty angst and grief of life, while taking it to rare clarity, calm and comfort. Grayhurst’s work is haunting, majestic and cleansing, often leaving one breathless in the wake of its intelligence, hope, faith and love amidst the muck of life. Many of Allison Grayhurst’s poems are simply masterpieces. Grayhurst’s poetry is a lighthouse of intelligent honour… indeed, intelligence rips through her work like white water,” Taylor Jane Green, Registered Spiritual Psychotherapist and author.
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Book reviews of the River is Blind paperback:
“Throughout (The River is Blind), she (Allison Grayhurst) employs
reiterated tropes of swallowing and being consumed, spatial fullness
and emptiness, shut- in, caverns, chasms, cavities; angels, archangels,
blasphemy, psalms; satiation or starved. With a conceit of unrequited sex as “my desire”, nocturnal emissions, awakening in the morning, the poet lives at capacity, uninhibited, dancing,” Anne Burke, poet, regional representative for Alberta on the League of Canadian Poets’ Council, and chair of the Feminist Caucus.
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“Allison’s poetic prose is insightful, enwrapping, illuminating and brutally truthful. It probes the nature of the human spirit, relationships, spirituality and God. It is sung as the clearest song is sung within a cathedral by choir. It is whispered as faintly as a heartbroken goodbye. It is alive with the life of a thousand birds in flight within the first glint of morning sun. It is as solemn as the sad-sung ballad of a noble death. Read at your peril. You will never look at this world in quite the same way again. Your eye will instinctively search the sky for eagles and scan the dark earth for the slightest movement of smallest ant, your heart will reach for tall mountains, bathe in the most intimate of passions and in the grain and grit of our earth. Such is Allison Grayhurst. Such is her poetry. THE RIVER IS BLIND is a must-read,” Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.
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A wonderful exploration of what poetry, beneath words, rhythm, rhyme, lines, and even meaning, is.
… it is being intoxicated with the fullness of seeing God there
with every thought – in the swimming pool while treading water,
or at the hair dresser, drinking coffee, waiting for a turn.
… True intensity is subtle,
is equal in its magnitude as it is to its intricacy – It commands exploration.
Even death, sometimes your sister,
cannot revert humanity back to that interval
before God exhaled, altering the playing field, resulting in
such a mighty fusion.
The themes in this poem are so large they seem to encompass both the self and the self in God. In the end the poet, you, all humanity, is part of the mighty fusion that the poet sees when they see God with every thought during every moment of the day no matter how mundane the moment.
Life begets life:
a forceful synergy of the round and the sharp,
splicing, splitting, until more splicing and splitting until
dependency on oxygen is born.
begets what the poet who sees the self subsumed by poetry misses in their concentration on self and self subsumed. This is fascinating, vital poetry.
Wow. Especially like:
” I have known death’s jolts, have known its harrowing cripple
and crack, and know it cannot revert humanity back to that interval
before God exhaled, altering the playing field, resulting in
such a mighty fusion.”