Mid-air
I reached across the riddle-barrier,
shaved my head and walked through the door.
I took my clothes out of the closet
and burned them,
I watched the light dim all around
and walked over a cliff.
I did this without a choice, only a decision
to embrace a movement forward.
I was commanded to do this, and I consented,
not without struggle and self-loathing,
not without fear and a sense of deep failure.
Now I am falling, I am in the air, eagle-spread,
a sharp pain in my side and the wind whistling
its rapture.
Everything people do
is bound to kill them eventually.
Take dancing or bricklaying or being a mother.
I am still falling, I have not landed
in someone’s arms nor on the sharp rocky bottom.
The pain remains, so does the wonder,
as I fall, falling,
© Allison Grayhurst
Advance
Leave this place,
it is for beginners
and the ground is an overgrown
outside used-to-be sanctuary, trapping
you in its weeds.
Be steadfast as a revelation
years after being revealed, infused
to your intelligence, supplying water
and detachment when necessary.
Walk through the ruins then jump the fence
and do not relapse into nostalgia or a thousand
what-ifs that have no viable conclusion.
Pull the plug, cast away what was once
a masterpiece but has since degraded,
orbiting a dead star.
It is easy as taking off a coat on a warm day.
It is dialectics and you are at the nadir,
traveling the circle around, soon to rise.
Leave what you cannot afford to keep
as it is too invasive a burden
and you are ready to expand, stretch out,
canopy a richer domain, permitted
to be fully nourished and explore.
© Allison Grayhurst
White Butterflies and a Red Squirrel
Influences deserved
never arrive, and
the gift remains in the pocket
like chapstick on a cold day,
or as bits of sharpness to remind you
not to get too comfortable, complacent
or convinced of your rigorous calculations
when you calculate the sides of a square,
a triangle, an oracle reading.
People you thought would never go,
have gone, walked away
from sanity’s reach, most likely never to return.
Things you wish would have left years go, remain,
your days outstanding, tied to the
root-whip survival, lashing.
And there is more never expected –
a banquet of nourishing literature,
a husband still coalescing with brilliant light,
two children grown, kind and weaving,
and the animals, older, happy
watching the birdbath in the flush garden,
in a backyard that in the early morning
as you scan the interior and the perimeter,
you are sure that nothing could be more glorious,
pleasing, leaves you praising
for being allowed to witness such royalty.
God’s love heats up your pores,
fills your nostrils with green scents,
fills your ears with the chatter of communities –
sparrows, starlings, bumblebees, white butterflies
and the red squirrel. You are sure
such kneading, thinning-thickening harmony
is the natural state of being,
propelled to experience this nirvana, (spinning, spherical)
knowing tomorrow it won’t last, but also knowing
it will always last, existing, uncorrupted,
sealed, continuing in this moment, this morning,
this day, in this exact summer.
© Allison Grayhurst
