.

Aged Sculptress

 .

Now I think of you

when the pears are darkening

on the kitchen table and hardly an animal

wanders through the trees in nights

of starless black.

 

I think of you when I hear the

glory of a child’s excited cry

or see a cat’s half-closed eyes,

brimming with proud independence.

 

I think of the Ontario lake, silver-toned

and maddened during a winter storm.

 

I think of a delicate strand of grass

or a smooth stone that has known the

caress of many human fingers.

 

I think of you like I do a sadness and longing

held together with unflinching peace, held

in contemplation.

 

I think you are good like the air is good,

and a branch that has fallen to the ground or

a dying butterfly.

 

I think you have moved me

like a wave that has swallowed my flesh

and washed my eyes in clay

to be reborn, sensuously devouring.

.

.

Copyright © 1994 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “Print Verite”, 1994

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

.

“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,”  Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.