This end

This end is an offspring

to tend to and adore,

breaking through distinctive patterns

that worked for a while, but now,

only harm.

This offspring is musical,

composing practices and prayers,

hungering for the details

to disinfect and clean.

This joy is unspoken,

activity with no burdensome description,

uninfected with expectations, obligations

or the guarding dog.

This house has been lived in,

all things that have died have died

again, deeper, and finally here, renewed.

Faith is the exact destination, lapping the plate

sparkling so all that is left is awe and mercy, digesting

simplicity in the swelling brightness before me.

I have you again like at the start

when I first witnessed your face

and hair and eyes and loved you

with a bliss that in the past

I could only steal from books but now

I owned, uniquely as my own.

Trees hang over the cliff.

Behind me is the summit.

My foolish hopes align

with divinity’s commands.

Bars are dropped, lightweight like pins.

Moon and sun full, clearly visible

in the same morning sky.

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Copyright © 2023 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

“The poems included in Allison Grayhurst’s poetry collection Running, lightwave riding reveal an impressive artistic perfection and creative energy. The poems are full of lyrical force and show freshness of style. No doubt, this is a significant work. The poems have great power of observation and originality of imagination,” Dr. Karunesh Kumar Agarwal publisher Cyberwit.net

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First published in “As Surely As The Sun Literary Magazine” June 2023

https://surelyasthesun.weebly.com/issue-1.html

Click to access 648883881-issue-1-may-2023-as-surely-as-the-sun-literary-1.pdf

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Published in “Jnuri Magazine” (translation of poem into Korean), June 2022 – translated by poet Byeong Cheol Kang

https://www.jnuri.net/news/article.html?no=55643&fbclid=IwAR1eij3P6S3edTwS6V3gAVpsXOOBLFI1PE5jPGt6fTu7Tv2be4KVGj_AGTc

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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Homecoming II

       Returning to the kelp forest

as a companion to a larger inhabitant,

as a guest to the great reef waters,

a lover of the odd and miraculous,

seduced by succulent influences,

descending then rising all in good speed.

        I welcome the sand dwellers

and the tunnel diggers. I am welcomed

by the tentacled and the fanged,

and by the soft, squishy translucent floaters.

        I am just another creature that eats or will be eaten,

and I relish in this environment of unquestioning acceptance

my minuscule place.

       I ride the back of the bottom feeder. I find my own

way through the caves, avoiding the high price

of this liberty.

       I have returned and I am not leaving

for a more agreeable, less authentic reality.

My form is older, broken, degenerating, but

       I feel it again, my nerves,

secret sensations, glorious intensity,

awakening like during the first fall,

like the first time waiting

to being caught, irrevocably

saved.

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Copyright © 2023 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

“The poems included in Allison Grayhurst’s poetry collection Running, lightwave riding reveal an impressive artistic perfection and creative energy. The poems are full of lyrical force and show freshness of style. No doubt, this is a significant work. The poems have great power of observation and originality of imagination,” Dr. Karunesh Kumar Agarwal publisher Cyberwit.net

.

.

First published in “As Surely As The Sun Literary Magazine” June 2023

https://surelyasthesun.weebly.com/issue-1.html

Click to access 648883881-issue-1-may-2023-as-surely-as-the-sun-literary-1.pdf

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.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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