Rooms of Joy

Rooms of Joy

We will build four rooms of joy

to honour the monastic sigh, to understand

the kestrel on its perch and the wheelchair

halted at the steep curb.

We will sanctify our moon

with paint, clay and easel – letting colours and moisture

drip through our fingers, malleable as a conscious dream.

We will bellow out music that towers over

the thieves of daylight, races into our bodies, offering grace

where there is none.

We will write poems and stories of fact

and fiction to bring

definition to our visions, to lose ourselves,

naked as the calling gulls.

We will hold our meditation stones,

like a horse’s beautiful mane, brushing,

braiding, all the while,

softly whispering our affection

into the copper-coloured ear of nature.

And the animals will bind us. The enormous love

between us all will cut away

the scar tissue of disappointment.

We will plunge into this temple, playing games,

bearing fruit. In our four rooms we will love, expand

and often falter – fresh and deep, rooted into the floorboards

of this true home.

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First published in “VerseWrights”, January 2017

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

“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.

Reviews of ‘The Many Lights of Eden’:

“’The Many Lights of Eden’ is a journey: a journey of the heart through youth, anguish, struggle, spiritual awakening, grief, death, love, loss, guilt, struggle, despair, hope, surrender, God, sensuality, imperfection, motherhood, aging, the vanquishing of the devil, indeed, many devils, the inevitable fall from perfection and the casting off of old wineskins for a new one. Perhaps speaking of this book as a chronicle of spiritual maturing would be more accurate, the realization that there is spirituality within imperfection and that handmade temples cannot hope to compete with the spiritual temples within each of us. ‘The Many Lights of Eden’ is a diamond. It is a beautiful collection of insights. Allison Grayhurst’s thoughts and writings are a deep well. Drink from it, for the water is clear and crisp. This collection is a MUST-READ,” Eric M. Vogt, author of Letters to Lara and Paths and Pools to Ponder.

“I have been slow at responding to reviews for Allison Grayhurst due to summer’s busy days, however she brings life to each poem, heart to the images and everyone should have a collection of Grayhurst Poetry,” Ann Johnson-Murphree, poet.