Briefly – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 19 Comments
Fallen Leaf Art by Nikola Faller in Osijek, Croatia – More inspiring photos HERE
Briefly

Stages and ages of crimson edges
crisp rounds, centers of golden.

Veins will remain long after the delicate 
sections have disassembled themselves
to join the soil for another cycle. 

These elders don't fight seasonal changes.
Through the quiet and loud
or bend and wave of storm
they receive while sheltering seedings below

forever willing to show their nakeness 
in the darkest of times.
With empty arms
while full of life within.

Their offerings a mosaic
of temorary color.

© Ali Grimshaw 2021

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With Appreciation

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 15 Comments

I can’t imagine my life without poetry. How many times has a poem shifted my thinking, invited my tears of release, or shined a light on the awe of being alive? Each poem is an invitation to slow down. Without them what could I have missed? Therefore, I am grateful to others who promote poetry and for each poet brave enough to share.

Thank you to Susi Blocks for nominating one of my poems from The Short of It for The Pushcart Prize I am one of six to be nominated by her. My poem, Thunderstorm Conversations can be read on Susi’s blog, I Write Her. If you’d like to be featured on The Short of It, click here for the submissions guidelines.

Thank you to the poems, let’s keep making space for them to arrive.

Ali

Sustaining – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 45 Comments 
As the virus
careens
spinning down
our long road.

The dust has yet
to settle
from the wheels.

Slow motion 
particles fall
as we sift silently
through glittered 
remembering.

Was that last month
or yesterday?

As I am here
reaching
you are there
still
only through airwaves

and yet I hear
your love.

© Ali Grimshaw 2021

Join us at dVerse Poets' Pub for
Open Link Night HERE

Delicious – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 25 Comments 

What happiness can arrive
when sunlight's retreat paints

leaves cherry crush, berry swirl
butterscotch eye candy

walking through an ordinary Monday
your hand in mine, we breathe the awe
 
street lined masterpieces
colored by a lack of chlorophyll

less of something  
created more today

© Ali Grimshaw 2020

Another yummy tree in my Portland, Oregon neighborhood.

Let Fall Catch You – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 29 Comments 
Painted leaves sing in unison
Unlike music, their song
is soundless harmony.

This orchestra of glow
soothes the tempo
of an internal pounding

from a day of instruments
that refused to play
the same song.

Fall catches you
with muted volume
a serenade of equilibrium

let the blushing colors 
sing you home.

© Alicia Grimshaw (rewrite of 2018 poem)

Together – Poem By Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 41 Comments 
tasting sadness on your skin
I lean into the space between

your peach-warm cheeks glow
while shadow-stones play
on Autumn's windowshade
 
head to heartbeat 
I hold you to my chest
feel a shift to calm

a small sigh from your lips
warmly weighted 

© Ali Grimshaw 2021

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Her Dance – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 23 Comments
Photo by Jeff Rayner, Side-Walking on Air
"Remember your dance?
The young girl inside me
calls out, 
"Remember?"

Dad told me how, as a baby,
I sat on the floor rocking side to side,
just smiling.

Later I was known to start the day 
with only one shoe
my frustrated mother shaking her head
while the school bus left me behind again.

I was a girl who thrived
climbing trees, running through woods
I wasn't hyperactive, just a mover.
Running brought temporary relief.

The only dancing I knew growing up  
drill teams of painted girls, 
performance dancers
that wasn't me.

Finding social dancing in my 20's 
was like a drug. 
Swinging partners in dancehalls
escaping thoughts I didn't know how to turn off. 
Anxiety, the never ending loop of ideas. 
I found myself in the music. 
I floated free. 

It is never too late 
to turn the music on
find your sway, sashay 
surrender to internal movement 

Your body has not forgotten.
Your brain has many incredible ideas 
but your heart is the one who knows
how to dance with the world.

Listen inward
find the place 
where your freedom
resides.

© Ali Grimshaw 2021

“When Gillian was 8 years old, her hyperactivity — which earned her the nickname Wriggle-Bottom — led her mother to take her to a family doctor. While he examined Gillian, the doctor put on some music and asked Mrs. Pyrke to leave the room with him. “Out they went and the minute they had gone I started to dance to the music, even going up on his desk,” Ms. Lynne wrote in her autobiography, “A Dancer in Wartime” (2012). “What I hadn’t noticed was that his door was one of those beautiful old glass ones with etched designs through which the doctor and my mother were watching.” As they observed Gillian dancing with abandon, she recalled, the doctor said: “There is no trouble with this child, Mrs. Pyrke. She is a natural dancer — you must take her to dance class.” – Gillian Lynne, Choreographer of ‘Cats,’ Is Dead at 92 from The New York Times

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Ambling – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 60 Comments 
Let's linger in the Autumn glow
dusk is on its way

to cloak us with comfort
ease our worries loose
to fall.

Pausing here 
we become one with this 
seasonal scene of hush

before continuing our saunter
harvesting what matters most
from this day.

© Ali Grimshaw 2021

Join us on dVerse for Quadrille Monday HERE

Photo take in Portland, Oregon 2020. View of the Willamette River.

Soul-forgetfulness – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 18 Comments

What’s missing? she asked herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t know her strengths. It wasn’t that her imagination had run off to have an affair with someone better. It wasn’t that she expected easy.

What was missing now was the risk to hope again. To dream bigger, like a five-year-old coloring with abandon on the whole wall. Markers in hand, in full out play. As far as each arm could reach. Without fear of intersecting lines, sharp puncture points or curvy wide spaces.

What’s missing is the leap, the willingness to let it unfold and seeing herself capable of not only the journey but strong enough to feel all the textures of emotion like carpets of days she had walked through to get to now. She knew her heart would break every day and that just meant that it would keep growing.

Top of the hill, feet on the pedals, hair in the wind, she is going. 

© Ali Grimshaw 2021

“In the Celtic tradition it was said that we suffer from soul-forgetfulness. We have forgotten who we are and have fallen out of true relationship with the earth and with one another. Thus, the path to wellbeing is not about becoming something other than ourselves or about acquiring a spiritual knowledge that is essentially foreign to us. It is about waking up to a knowledge that is deep in the very fabric of our being, and it is about living in relation to this wisdom.” – John Philip Newell, “Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul,” The Daily Good







			

	


			
				


	

			
Season of Temporary – Poem by Ali Grimshaw
		

				

						 ~ Ali Grimshaw			 ~ 12 Comments					

				

		

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tended affectionately
organic prizes plumped
primed by summer's passion
heat and BB King's blues
quenching warmth 
gathering of sunlit kisses
red ripe to tango 
with your tongue and mine
slip into my backyard 
delight in this tender flesh
this ready to please moment 
of this temporary season.

© Ali Grimshaw 2020 

Dear readers and followers, here’s a great opportunity for your writings to be read by other writers, and also to find and meet other writers. You are very welcome to share a poem, HERE, at Promote Yourself Monday on Go Dog Go Cafe.





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