Unseen

The folly of faith,

impossible to describe,

seeing the roots, the buds

connected but separated

by the trunk – crusty,

immovable, a thick stick

stubborn realty.

The buds are the fruit of faith

as the roots drink, low, snake-like in

their undercavern – moist with the fluids of earth,

tougher than the surrounding insects and worms,

carrying substance through

the almost impenetrable wood –

            wood for paper, wood for footbridges,

            and for building beaver dams

            and a multitude of varied homes.

When the buds bloom, we smell the blossom

hold their fragile sides, unplucked inside a gentle touch.

Then the songbirds come, the squirrels, the first summer’s

light, and the buds turn into apples, peaches, a succulent cherry.

The faith of the root is actualized.

We consume, satiated by the sweet flesh and nectar –

nutrients flow into fingertips, bellies-centred,

calf muscles, and our brains, fed,

able to charge unchartered pathways,

revolutionary understanding, shoulder altruism.

Faith is this folly that only

the poor in expectation can see,

faith as fodder for the foal, necessary

as the change of seasons, faith

that begins

in the root-blood-bond darkness

far below.

Copyright © 2021 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

 .https://issuu.com/allisongrayhurst/docs/book_32_-ways_of_mercy_-_the_poetry_of_allison_gra

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First published in “Rave Cage Zine” March 2021

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OHHDKazRmtKcCPpR4sco_SrxoK19029c/view

RavenCageZine55

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You can listen to this poem by clicking the link below:

Sun-spill    Son-spell

By myself, I was deceived,

led by a false enthusiasm

of generosity that fizzled out

when reality made its claim.

            Devotion is rare, even rarer

is the true gift given,

void of expectation

on the receiver.

            Faith is holding emptiness with God,

a fountain that recycles its flow, continuously.

            Jesus is a shock

out of human nature into God’s nature.

Jesus is a higher level of heaven revealed,

but hard to keep the veil open when the world restricts,

presses down with its laws, telling us otherwise.

            I see a house.

we will enter that house.

            In that house,

food and love will be abundant.

            In this house, we will be invited,

where the walls have a pulse,

a warm blood rhythm.

            From this house

we will witness a smiling flock of geese overhead,

crying out a simultaneous song, crying out

with such vitality it usurps then transforms

the dark familiar, absolving our debts

with that song, along with every other bond

embroidered to our skin that made us weep

from their inexorable weight and prophecy.

Copyright © 2021 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

 .https://issuu.com/allisongrayhurst/docs/book_32_-ways_of_mercy_-_the_poetry_of_allison_gra

.

First published in “Raven Cage Zine” March 2021

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OHHDKazRmtKcCPpR4sco_SrxoK19029c/view

RavenCageZine55

.

You can listen to this poem by clicking the link below:

Consecrated

In a murky limpid place

you speak to me, vanquish my

anxieties with your radiant flame,

speak and say

the circumference is the sphere, is the line

and the space beyond

the sphere.

Cruelty is natural, mercy takes effort,

choice, consciousness.

Accepting mercy takes even more, a leap

out of the perpetual karma-shadows, a daring

to be without a past or a people or pebble stones

in your shoes.

You speak and say

succumb, and I will take your greed of self-knowledge,

all of your knowing, intelligence, reduce it to vapour,

collapse your preconceptions with the tranquility of

the first morning, and you will praise me with the wonder

of all who are newborn, without guise or storages.

Fall down, you say, to your hands and knees.

Look up, you say, to the charity of the sky.

Your being that was before is burned.

You say, love,

and I will be your restitution,

your water, your vortex, your art.

Copyright © 2021 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

 .https://issuu.com/allisongrayhurst/docs/book_32_-ways_of_mercy_-_the_poetry_of_allison_gra

.

Published in “ILA Magazine – Feature Poet” September 2021

https://www.ilamagazine.net/post/poetic-feature-of-allison-grayhurst/

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First published in “Chicago Record Magazine” March 2021

https://magazine-record.blogspot.com/2021/03/consecrated-in-murky-limpid-place-you.html

https://magazine-record.blogspot.com/2021/03/

You can listen to this poem by clicking the link below: