Before I remember

blank days, atheist days

that left me sombre-hard,

but these days

are brim with harrowing storms,

prayers and keepsakes infused

with intractable meaning, memories

ripe and revered as a newborn’s flesh.

Before, my soul was below, breaking

through the body regularly, in pieces,

but these days it sits on the surface,

intact, a glass sphere without protection,

thrown and rolling, like

a lightning fuse, cracked.

These days there are no pointed steps,

but each day is like the first sun rays seen,

heightening my energy to be as kind and capable

as possible as the bringing pulse lives in a jar,

is taken out of the jar, and dying takes its fill,

and death runs in circles around the dream

and everything within the dream

that is real and everlasting is quenched

when the days are these days

sober and groaning, rising

break-and-fall, cresting hard

with this shining golden sharp

hurt, breath-taking.

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Copyright © 2024 by Allison Grayhurst

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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Read whole poem:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/my-mothers-sky/

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My Mother’s Sky

(Eileen (Lee Porter) Grayhurst 1930-2024)

The Death Journey

Space around the memories,

walking the cul-de-sac,

house to house, in a dream

where the small school stood and the field

is just the same where you linked arms

with your teacher and talked,

bright with your awakening into literature.

The trees are stronger, thicker-trunked,

living non-violent as they expand

and take up more ground.

Space from room to room and five hawks

fill the sky, then merge with the sky over the lake

and the vast line of clouds, changing temperature.

She drives her last car drive,

into this emptiness that does not hurt

but offers no comfort.

After the drive

the love in her blazes refreshed

as she sits in her lazy boy chair,

forgetting her sickness and old age,

blazes the whole scope of her magnificence,

strongest in her compassion.

This last journey we will have together.

We will overcome together until the end

and even then

there will be no ending, just a change,

space, I cannot fathom,

space added between us, space experienced

sometimes as a shedding of plumage,

sometimes, as a wasps’ nest touched,

accidental unbearable sting.

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Copyright © 2024 by Allison Grayhurst

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

.

.

Read whole poem:

https://allisongrayhurst.com/my-mothers-sky/

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