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Deciding

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     Deciding to lose, coming home,

speaking of love and worn-sole boots,

knowing rest as forgiveness.

     Love I see is a marriage that spares no compliment

or insult, uncomfortable as a needle sometimes,

sometimes grazing, naked, uneventful, exposed

side by side.

     The bluejay owns its love – a tuft of feathery charm

and a voice that shrills across the snowbanks.

     Wanting all wanting vanquished, love I see

will not tolerate averting eyes, the coveting of humming,

shining cars moving by, puts no store in the making

of breadsticks or piled-up gift certificates,

sings extreme, never nursing inner deformity’s indulgent dreams

as a balm to ease the downpour of poverty.

     The love I see is worth the gathering of moths,

dark circles under my eyes, horizons and hopes

of insufficient glow.

     Love I know like death, exposing the vanity of turtle-shell

treasures,  of keeping dried flowers and polished plaques.

     I will not cry for this world,

for love is born as a larvae emerging beetle, continuously,

is substantial as an open window, small

as the cracked-egg nourishing grace of an extended hand.

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.Copyright  © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “The Commonline Journal” May 2015

http://www.commonlinejournal.com/2015/05/deciding-by-allison-grayhurst.html

Click to access 20151023No_Raft_No_Ocean_by_Allison_Grayhurst.pdf

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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.