Learning Temperance

Posted on by Allison Grayhurst

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Learning Temperance

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Cradle the handle under the sleeve

and watch as the sun changes shadows.

Blue. I wait in the private everafter with

the future under my fingernails and an orange seed

in my throat.

Will it happen or will it always be ‘the wait’?

Waiting in the moment just before bloom

but never arriving into full colour? Or is it only

a long pause, gathering breath for the final

swing that will bury all dullness that has gone before?

I see two doors and neither of them are open.

I see a tree I have walked by many times before. This time

I noticed it and smiled.

Maybe this is not darkness at all,

but a line to follow and focus on

like a child watching rain drops – one at a time.

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Copyright © 2004 by Allison Grayhurst

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amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “The Greensilk Journal”, 2011

http://www.thegsj.com/poetry_3_fall_2011.html

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/learning-temperance.m4a?_=1

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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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4 responses to “Learning Temperance”

  3. What makes your poetry so special, Allison, is the way you marry language to idea so that both the language and idea become surprising or unique. The start of this poem
    Cradle the handle under the sleeve
    and watch as the sun changes shadows.
    reminds me of that magic you have. The first line is mysterious when you first read it. What handle? Under a sleeve, and then the second line, watching the sun as it changes shadows. Then the word, “Blue,” to start the second line, blue as related to shadows, but also blue related to
    …the private everafter with
    the future under my fingernails and an orange seed
    in my throat…
    This is not just the everafter that we all must face in our everyday lives and at the end of life, but the private everafter, the handle under the sleeve, the shadow on the sun, where the future is under your fingernails and an orange seed–which is a symbol of fertility in some cultures–in your throat. Given your recent publishing feat this symbol or orange seed and throat, indicative of speech out of the throat, seems appropriate.
    Then the questions:
    Will it happen or will it always be ‘the wait’?
    Waiting in the moment just before bloom
    but never arriving into full colour? Or is it only
    a long pause, gathering breath for the final
    swing that will bury all dullness that has gone before?
    Each question queries the self, as I read this, or your personal life. Ethel once wrote a poem with a line that went something like,
    Is it to be a woman?
    To always look on windows instead of doors?
    These questions seem to strike the same poignancy, the wondering about life and what it means in its fulfillment. These strike to the heart of who all of us are in confronting ourselves as human beings.
    Then the answer to the questions and the poem’s powerful denouement:
    I see a tree I have walked by many times before. This time
    I noticed it and smiled.
    Maybe this is not darkness at all,
    but a line to follow and focus on
    like a child watching rain drops – one at a time.
    Perhaps if we learn temperance, patience, and only look at a tree we’ve walked past before and notice it and smile, then we will find that we are not in darkness, in dullness, in the everafterlife’s end. Perhaps, the tree and life is a line to follow and focus on “Like a child watching rain drops–one at a time.”
    This is absolutely wonderfulmagnificent.

    Reply
    • Allison Grayhurst – Toronto, Canada – Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Four of her poems were nominated for “Best of the Net” in 2015/2018, and one eight-part story-poem was nominated for “Best of the Net” in 2017. She has over 1,375 poems published in more than 525 international journals and anthologies. In 2018, her book Sight at Zero, was listed #34 on CBC’s “Your Ultimate Canadian Poetry List”. In 2020, her work was translated into Chinese and published in "Rendition of International Poetry Quarterly" and in “Poetry Hall”. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers, a Porcepic Book, in Vancouver in 1995. Since then, she has published twenty-one other books of poetry and twelve collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing. Prior to the publication of Somewhere Falling she had a poetry book published, Common Dream, and four chapbooks published by The Plowman. Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was published by Ottawa publisher above/ground press December 2012. In 2014 her chapbook Surrogate Dharma was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press, Barometric Pressures Author Series. In 2015, her book No Raft – No Ocean was published by Scars Publications. Also, her book Make the Wind was published in 2016 by Scars Publications. As well, her book Trial and Witness – selected poems, was published in 2016 by Creative Talents Unleashed (CTU Publishing Group). More recently, her book Tadpoles Find the Sun was published by Cyberwit, August 2020. She is a vegan. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com Collaborating with Allison Grayhurst on the lyrics, Vancouver-based singer/songwriter/musician Diane Barbarash has transformed eight of Allison Grayhurst’s poems into songs, creating a full album entitled River – Songs from the poetry of Allison Grayhurst, released 2017. Some of the places her work has appeared in include Parabola (Alone & Together print issue summer 2012); SUFI Journal (Featured Poet in Issue #95, Sacred Space); Elephant Journal; Literary Orphans; Blue Fifth Review; The American Aesthetic; The Brooklyn Voice; Five2One; Agave Magazine; JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, Drunk Monkeys; Now Then Manchester; South Florida Arts Journal; Gris-Gris; Buddhist Poetry Review; The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry, Storm Cellar, morphrog (sister publication of Frogmore Papers); New Binary Press Anthology; Straylight Literary Magazine (print); Chicago Record Magazine, The Milo Review; Foliate Oak Literary Magazine; The Antigonish Review; Dalhousie Review; The New Quarterly; Wascana Review; Poetry Nottingham International; The Cape Rock; Ayris; Journal of Contemporary Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry (now called The Journal); The Toronto Quarterly; Existere; Fogged Clarity, Boston Poetry Magazine; Decanto; White Wall Review.
      Allison Grayhurst says:

      from “Fourth Meditation” by Theodore Roethke
      …”What is it to be a woman?
      To be contained, to be a vessel?
      To prefer a window to a door?…”

      Reply

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