….

Many years torn – a leaf, a paper towel,

half around the other side, locked

on the beach of my nadir – discipline

and a cold cruel courage, jammed into a groove.

Just the sunlight on my wall,

warming the wall, penetrating the heavy plaster.

 

I was born from a stem.

I fit on a chalkboard.

Over the cool half-formed moon

I hear an echo, smell the crisp lunar craters –

stagnant rocks, deep troughs to fuel

a million or more Earth dreams.

Scents of dead matter colliding,

of rough stone and endless rotation,

repetitive atmosphere

churning.

 

Behind a broken bark I hide my vanity,

rushing into quicksand, there I sink.

 

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:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/walkways10.m4a?_=1

 

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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