….

Paved paths, brisk

storm of senses, an old

opening, endless as a dug-in arrow –

head in the weeping jungle, the coolness

of autumn air brushing tombstones,

the thin necks of geese.

So much night in a single glass, body

and name together, replacing

existence with this inheritance and no other.

Rows of ships crowding the edge of the lake –

docked and bearing down for winter. The distance

grinds, gravel on my belly, cracked shells

in subterranean pages writing down dawns and victories

never experienced, only imagined.

Is it right to receive the bitter strawberry?

Drink its flesh like juice and

kneel before reality’s dictatorship?

Is it clarity? Or forgetting?

 

Copyright © by Allison Grayhurst 2014

 

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “The Muse – An International Journal of Poetry” Volume 4, Number 1, June Issue 2014

http://themuse.webs.com/June%202014/muse%20june%2014.pdf

http://themuse.webs.com/latestissues.htm

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You can listen to the poem below:

 

In response to the poem – Walkways:

“This is brilliant! Brilliant. Reminds me of when I first read Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”. And I wanted to stand up on the city bus and exclaim aloud: “Listen to this!” A comprehensive capturing of human earthly experience in all its dimensions without missing a beat – beyond the conscious mind – dancing with the levels of our knowing and sensing – that we feel but do not always recognize, and rarely, oh so rarely articulate. Clearly, Grayhurst’s poetic journey has taken her to the mountain top,” Taylor Jane Green,  registered holistic talk therapist and author.

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