Lumin

Posted on December 24, 2020 by Allison Grayhurst

Lumin

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One of the greatest souls I ever met

was in the body of a rat.

She was pure and noble, dissolved

in gentle love, a smooth essence, easy

to dive into.

Her name was Lumin- named by my son

after the Shaolin clan virtue Focus.

In truth, it may sound crazy, something many

would smirk at or mock – but here she was –

holding an infinity of tenderness in her rat eyes,

every day, every night with her rat toes, her Dumbo ears

and her rat tail.

She had a brain tumour and lived a year with it –

recovering five times from the brink of death, holding space

in the chair, giving up her seat on the throne to stay with us.

Every night for hours we stayed together, often

just looking into each other’s eyes.

No one could know. I could have never guessed

that I would love a rat this much,

that such an untroubled expansive heart

could dwell in one so small, so shunned and disrespected.

She loved and was able to receive love

like a child with her mother.

She saved my son during two years of teenage despair.

That was her music. There was nothing hard in her, nothing

that did not soften into joy- even when she was ill.

When she died

five minutes she struggled, panicked, lunging for breath.

My hands went on her. I prayed for God

to intervene with mercy.

For five more minutes she stopped lunging, was at ease,

gasping slightly, then stopped gasping

and the light radiated through and around her body,

and her breath and the beating of her chest stopped. Now

she is at rest, delighting fully in the wave.

One of the greatest friends I have ever had was a rat.

And I have and have lost many friends in many body forms –

she was a shrine of layered clarity and kindness. She

was a great being, a resting point in God’s creation.

One of the greatest souls I have ever met

was in the body of a rat.

Please listen. please understand. Holy. Holy. Holy halleluiah.

We are all joined.

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© 2018 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Published in “Outlaw Poetry” July 2018

Lumin by Allison Grayhurst

https://outlawpoetry.com/category/allison-grayhurst/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/lumin.m4a?_=1

Rodents and Wings

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Allison Grayhurst

Rodents and Wings

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Days of holding up the second wall,

sustaining with syringe feedings and lifting

the broken Venetian blinds.

Days of extremes, straining to stay afloat

in a flood of despair and then given a

miracle season of joy until misfortune overtook again.

You told me to walk, and I did. You told me

in order to heal the wound, I must first see the wound.

You told to keep the water moving,

make waves with my hands and never stop

stroking the surface.

I loved without complaint- washed tiny toes in the sink,

kissed a forehead, made medicine in the kitchen.

My efforts worked, for a while

until they stopped working and death had its claim.

At the exact moment of death as I watched a body

struggle to sustain breath then stop struggling,

you gave me sight to see a spirit rising,

speaking of thanks and love and vows,

showed me the ropes of attachment, strings of light

that need release before a soul can give way to illumination,

dissolve intact, no vigor or sorrow, but merging with the whole,

into the light that is blackness, that is not void

but the absorption of all colour, holy.

You showed me and still I grew angry and embittered,

at a loss for comfort, destroyed of trust.

Two days I lingered enveloped in this terrible flame,

weeping, separated from the dance. On the third day,

you came again, pointing out

a passage of perfect meaning, allowing the sun

to glow and others to be stronger than me.

Crystal patterns converging. A crack muted,

a rift mended and filled, memories

and the harshness of a permanent end.

Two islands to surrender to,

two secrets painted on the beach,

on the backyard shed, in the inside,

giving in fully to emptiness overtaking,

as the calm begins to carve out a niche

where it can revive, return pure, all parts

tethered faithfully to the wind.

© 2018 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Published in “Along the Way: A Contemporary Poetry Anthology” December 2018

Poetry Anthology

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First published in “On Possibility: Poems and Poetry” January 2018

http://onpossibilitypoems.blogspot.ca/2018/01/two-poems-allison-grayhurst.html

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/rodents-and-wings.m4a?_=2

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If it is what you want . . .

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Allison Grayhurst

If it is what you want . . .

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Bleed out

in the dirt and dung of relationship,

leap like a lemming off the cliff

soothe your cracked hands in olive oil,

then take another’s hands and allow them

to join you in this private matter.

It is in this truth, ourselves with another, that

we test the mettle of our discoveries, the cleanliness

of the mansions we live in.

I see stillness in the saga, retreat

when necessary and triumphant vows

in spite of chaos and the blood-drenched ground.

I will never be fully born,

whole enough to join the stars in their whistling.

Each time it will be a sunflower plucked,

and the bee along with it,

each time torn awake –

on the threshold of death, only to master

the small stream before it widens into a river.

Each time,

love is a miracle – the movement forward, past

jagged huge stones, decaying corpses.

Let your bare feet make contact, even lie flat,

naked, face down, take in

the sharp edges, the smell, the sight, then

answer back by rising and walking and

acknowledging the sky.

Say, love, my love,

you are more than habit,

you are the most treasured thing ever pulled from the void,

the only summer worth remembering, a seed

that turned into a thousand-year-old tree and yet still

just a seed, easily crushed, demanding nutrients and care.

Clear cutting, mud-thrashing,

faint smiles that unfold a cityscape of fears.

Barely making it, sure of decline, then suddenly, soaring –

one nod, the same need, mutual reviving genesis.

It is soft sometimes, but mostly impossible,

always impossible, alone.

Make up your mind.

Make a shell and break it completely.

Pick an apple, and chew.

© 2018 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Published in “Outlaw Poetry” May 2018

https://outlawpoetry.com/category/allison-grayhurst/

https://outlawpoetry.com/2018/if-it-is-what-you-want-by-allison-grayhurst/

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Published in “Elephant Journal” April 2018

https://www.elephantjournal.com/now/if-it-is-what-you-want-poem-by-allison-grayhurst/

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/if-it-is-what-you-want.m4a?_=3

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