With the purity of a single intention

With the purity of a single intention

Days of history voyage low

into nations, beside graveyards.

You played with the existential architects for a while,

breathing in their deconstruction, but your laughter

languished. Straddled between crossroads,

you could not form a picture.

Days of comfort can be understood

when the crack tents with severity enough

to slice two wholes.

In your mind there are mountains

you have lost the ambition to cross, or to look up

at their venerated summits, and listen.

You have lost the cunning to cope, continents of wayward

possibilities. Look up, for the sake of past miracles

that swooned into your embrace like found love

as a perfect match

against fatalism and rising futility. Look up – out

into outerspace

and grow yourself a fierce mystic midnight.

Whitewash trails and gardens, places

where children are allowed to dig a hole in the ground,

tunnels where the earth shines copper

with forgotten buried pennies.

Look up and drop the stone of objection,

the stretching sorrows of realism.

It is divine, if you choose it to be.

It is the freedom of a fugitive, freed

of the rusted bars, equipped with appetite

and the exuberance of a gamble.

The ship is lost and an ocean is gained.

Water and water rhythms

are teaming between your toes,

salting your hair and open wounds.

From side to side, look at the glorious space around you,

then up, envisioning yourself strong-winged, safe

as a seafaring bird.

No Raft - No Ocean

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First published in “Contemporary Poetry-an Anthology of Present Day Best Poems (Volume 2)” September 2015

Contemporary Poetry Anthology 3 Contempory Poetry Volume 2- 1 CP 1 CP 2 CP 3 CP 4

https://www.createspace.com/5725069

with the purity 1 with the purity 2

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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.

“Grayhurst is a great Canadian poet. All of Allison Grayhurst’s poetry is original, sometimes startling, and more often than not, powerful. Anyone who loves modern poetry that does not follow the common path will find Grayhurst complex, insightful, and as good a poet as anyone writing in the world today. Grayhurst’s poetry volumes are highly, highly recommended,” Tom Davis, poet, novelist and educator.