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Take

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Your welcome mat is removed.

Take your cold, determined blasphemy

and seal yourself in your tomb.

Take the memory she had of your loveliness

and mutilate it, mutate it into your true face –

a hundred still births, lined up with all eyes open, dead,

before even beginning.

Take the grain from her garden. Take her cat while

she is sleeping. You can take

and trade her trust

to pay homage to your psychological sickness,

but you cannot take

the strength from her star, not the creativity that lulls

then sparks on her breath. You cannot take her rhythm,

her house where love and God come first,

where there is no deception,

no blood on the sleeves. You cannot take her beauty,

not her vow to stay open

to future blessings. You cannot take

the way she is committed to make good with her grief,

committed to emerge from this,

inextinguishably proud, in service, more perfect,

more saturated with love than she was before

you came and you took.

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Copyright © 2010 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “1947, a literary journal” June 2017

 

http://1947journal.tumblr.com/post/161659068154/take-by-allison-grayhurst

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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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