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One Wing
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I don’t know how long I will ride
upstream with my arms around this waning moon,
or if the deadwood I carry on my boat will be lightened
and used. Hope is a hair strand I lost in the waters,
far from any net or shore. All the days are taken
and none are left to Sunday.
I travel this way, cold to my own heart – a piece
of rock in space, a business card wet in the gutter.
By light I try to commune, but like a thin cloud
that forms then fades, I have no idea how long I will stay
a flake – less than broken,
and nothing more.
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Copyright © 2008 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
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First published in “The Galway Review”, 2014
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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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Review of ‘The Many Lights of Eden’:
“’The Many Lights of Eden’ is a journey: a journey of the heart through youth, anguish, struggle, spiritual awakening, grief, death, love, loss, guilt, struggle, despair, hope, surrender, God, sensuality, imperfection, motherhood, aging, the vanquishing of the devil, indeed, many devils, the inevitable fall from perfection and the casting off of old wineskins for a new one. Perhaps speaking of this book as a chronicle of spiritual maturing would be more accurate, the realization that there is spirituality within imperfection and that handmade temples cannot hope to compete with the spiritual temples within each of us. ‘The Many Lights of Eden’ is a diamond. It is a beautiful collection of insights. Allison Grayhurst’s thoughts and writings are a deep well. Drink from it, for the water is clear and crisp. This collection is a MUST-READ,” Eric M. Vogt, author of Letters to Lara and Paths and Pools to Ponder.
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Reblogged this on The ObamaCrat™.
What images! What images indeed to describe something so familiar to so many of us – especially during adolescence – a state of being, an emotional experience – that can be so vague and confusing when we are actually in it – put to such vivid detail and concrete illustration. Thank you, Allison Grayhurst.
“I don’t know how long I will ride
upstream with my arms around this waning moon”
“Hope is a hair strand I lost in the waters,
far from any net or shore.”
Wow! How many of us feel this way about our sense of vocation in the world! What will I be when I grow up? Who am I really? What actually warms my heart? Illustrated eloquently and viserally as this:
“I travel this way, cold to my own heart – a piece
of rock in space, a business card wet in the gutter.”
“By light I try to commune, but like a thin cloud
that forms then fades, I have no idea how long I will stay”