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A Month Unthawed        

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          You sleep each day

without sunlight.

Gentle, as always, you

resign to the fatal bruise

inside. You look with sick,

half-closed eyes, with love,

barely visible, but in your veins

death is unveiling, deliberate.

I am the one to hold you,

to weep a yellow suicide,

to press your thinning back

with my palm, maternally

holding, whispering of sunflowers

and of faith.

              Any other would have sank

into the hairy blood of wrath and blame,

but you and I, with an affinity between

that no illness can kill, are bearing this as one.

              You are the favourite seashell found as a child,

a warm hearth in a room of shadows.

You have comforted me when the world

harassed and promised to rule.

And now humbled to lose what I cannot lose,

the doorway is opened.

Hope is what has been given.

Strong together in this giant pain,

we will raise each hour as a lifetime

and believe, unflinchingly, in miracles.

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Copyright © 1998 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Poetry Salzburg Review No. 26”

http://www.poetrysalzburg.com/psr-no26.htm

http://www.poetrysalzburg.com/

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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 Longing To Be: 

“The contents of Allison Grayhurst’s book The Longing To Be are both personal and universal and are described in such thematic and golden terms that one can see that a lot of thought has gone into each line. The poems are written mostly in free verse throughout, with both rhythm and soul weaved into them. For some poems, the layout seems experimental, and there is definitely a playfulness in the way that the words and verses fall onto the page. Others do conform to a “norm”, whatever that is. All are dramatic and thoughtful. These are layered poems with new horizons presented to the reader in every re-read. The effect is to keep things fresh with poems that constantly surprise in spite, and because of, the number of times being read. I thoroughly recommend The Longing To Be as a poetry book to study carefully and cherish far into the future,” poet Brian Shirra.

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