Seeking the Balanced Degree

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My mind is painted bright blue

like a pair of favourite jeans.

My belly is bread for thieves. Here

the crime awakens:

I drink from the eternal teat

of responsibility, from the lake

of suffering I must ignore

to breathe a steady rain, to scatter

my guilt amongst the weeds.

What happens when your all is nothing?

or when the truck runs you down seeing only

anonymous hairstrands and entrails?

Knowing love’s limitations,

like one knows the snows or the teeth

of an animal, is the tension that frees.

An enemy is at my table.

A horse is buried under American sands.

My heart is water:

It longs to quench the hot summer skin of sparrows.

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Copyright © 1997 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “B-Gina Review”, 2012

http://bginareview.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/seeking-the-balanced-degree/

http://www.scoop.it/t/b-gina-review-journal

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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.