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Our children are orchards
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By the door
we wait for the end of school,
for the long day to bloom
to lay to rest the tricks of superstition and our obstinate ache
to be carried to the next fertile shore.
Blocked, but that too must be an answer
to the polished space that compresses and invades
our waking hours.
Risk that comes out of despair
as a last ditch effort to not give up
has been told in chronicles, as surrendering stories
that rain away dust and heal the hunt of weighted hunger,
nourishing spiritual belonging.
Leaves and feathers we collect with our children,
graveyards we visit to look at lost names,
where our hands seed deeper into the Earth,
rise higher than the hawk-bird into the stratosphere of grace,
grace as wind we depend upon to navigate our footsteps,
to quilt together our four-way love,
cooling the cut of arduous days and pilgrimage.
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Copyright © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
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Published in “The American Aesthetic, Volume 5, Summer 2017” June 2017
http://www.theamericanaesthetic.org/poetry-summer-2017.html
http://www.theamericanaesthetic.org/biographical.html#Grayhurst
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First published in “The American Aesthetic, Volume 2, Spring 2014”
http://www.theamericanaesthetic.org/spring-2014.html
http://www.theamericanaesthetic.org/archives-2014-present.html
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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:
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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,” Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.
Reblogged this on The ObamaCrat™.
Rich, fraught with depth, relief and instruction:
“Leaves and feathers we collect with our children,
graveyards we visit to look at lost names,
where our hands seed deeper into the Earth,
rise higher than the hawk-bird into the stratosphere of grace,
grace as wind we depend upon to navigate our footsteps,
to quilt together our four-way love,
cooling the cut of arduous days and pilgrimage.”
Yes, I have expereienced this and it is so challenging to do in our culture which preaches the opposite everywhere except places like here:
“Risk that comes out of despair
as a last ditch effort to not give up
has been told in chronicles, as surrendering stories
that rain away dust and heal the hunt of weighted hunger,
nourishing spiritual belonging.”
“Leaves and feathers we collect with our children,
graveyards we visit to look at lost names,
where our hands seed deeper into the Earth,
rise higher than the hawk-bird into the stratosphere of grace,”
I agree with your thoughts in the amazing poetry. Our children are like flowers. We water them with knowledge, protect them against the cold and we love them. Thank you for the outstanding poetry.