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Silence

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I lift the bullfrog from the waters.

Bread, parables and staying close to a legend –

these are things of joy. I am thinking of the grave

near the willow tree, whose roots have grown

around the coffin, and of a sailing ship

that has no home port, but drifts like

a hollow log on living waters.

Freely I made my room and closed the door.

I knelt for our starved country, and grief

wrapped around my sleep, landing safely in my arms.

My father, I dream of your flame. I miss the woods

and your kind goodbyes. Tomorrow is a keyhole

that shapes my hopes with tiny possibilities.

If I could rise like grass from dirt, then

my nerves would be brave and the smell of the sun

would heal me with prayers.

If my eyes were an ocean where the whale

and the seahorse gathered, then I could see mercy

in the shark’s primitive teeth, I would

lie on the surface of a wave,

catching the colours of dusk with

my out-stretched tongue.

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Copyright © 2000 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Boston Poetry Magazine” titled “In The Silence”, 2013

http://bostonpoetry.wordpress.com/tag/allison-grayhurst/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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Lifted

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On my shoulder

I feel the weight of many years

being licked into oblivion.

I feel a new being being born

in my shoes. And in the bardo-crossing,

I have tasted the anguish

of change, have touched the

hot poker between palms.

I have cried in my confusion as love

came to clean the dirt in my hair, cut

my fears in two to swim in my belly

like tadpoles collected as a child.

The wind is in me and the apple seed sprouts

its fragile sapling. In my mind I see the world

as never before, see the wolves

as fractured, fragmented souls, sniffing

at my door. I see patterns in the air

holy as the sun. Dreams are believed into truth.

My breath has won.

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.Copyright © 2000 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

.First published in “Temporary Lunatic Literary Zine” November 2015

http://lunaticlitpage.blogspot.ca/2015/11/lifted-poem-by-allison-grayhurst.html

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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