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Thinking Outside

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Touching tails

and feather wings.

The apple trees bend

and sing of autumn’s coming.

Starlings talk across backyards

and the high-pitched beetle

fills the wind like a calming drug.

In this place as summer fades

the quiet demands self-truth.

To pull from inside

a lacerated pride

and pile it on the dried grass.

Shadows mend the divided self

and love is an activity

to understand while counting birds

overhead.

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Copyright © 2004 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Poetry Pacific”, November 2013

http://poetrypacific.blogspot.ca/2013/11/3-poems-by-allison-grayhurst.html

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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I Know That

 .

              I know that faith

ebbs and flows, sometimes

larger, then hardly there

at all.

              I know my faith

is often all I own,

though barely visible,

crushed under

the world’s forearm.

              I know to sing and that singing

can be freedom no matter

the crack and heel.

              I know to love

for love is what remains

when nothing else renews.

              I know to pray like breathing.

              I know there is forgiveness

for what I fail to do,

and mercy is there for me to receive

like water.

.

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Copyright © 2004 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “The Write Room”, 2012

http://www.thewritemag.com/poetry/i-know-that/

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

.

Interlude

.

Upon the window’s sill

I saw a ghost walking

of a young woman veiled in grief

with sunset hair and moral eyes –

her death drifted to me like

a scent. I called to her, with

overflowing sympathy, but the grave

was now her bed and the enemy-world

was her heart’s betrayal. I saw her sit

then look to the sky, her tormented forehead

glistening as the rain did on the roof’s old shingles.

She spoke three names softly, and over and over their

sound ripped my skull as if the sun itself had entered

to burn all hard-held secrets out.

I loved her like someone I had long known and understood,

watching her, hardly visible

as the rain pushed on.

.

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Copyright © 2004 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

.

First published in “The Screech Owl” and “The Screech Owl – Issue 2”

http://thescreechowl.com/the-apple-tree.html

http://thescreechowl.com/the-owl-loft—store.html

http://www.lulu.com/shop/july-2014/the-screech-owl-issue-2/paperback/product-21709779.html

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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