turning the page tilts my story's full, first half daybreak spills, spreading past pages highlighted scribbled, dog-eared moldable mornings of my middle life a return route mapped for when memory fades my shadow lengthens I am far past sunrise now imagination holds the pen ©Ali Grimshaw 2022 Join a welcoming community of poets at dVerse for Quadrille #158 Morning Has Broken -HERE
pull the small metallic triangle tear through troubles until tingle arrives until you are fully unwrapped leaving anxious ribbons tinseled tension trailed behind bare-skinned, beaming, braver than the last version greet your new shadow-self welcome possibilities many stones of adventure lay at your feet ©Ali Grimshaw 2022 dVerse Poet's Pub - Quadrille #156 - HERE Join other big-hearted humans for ... Write Yourself: Poetry Writing Circle August 14, 2022 CLICK HERE
Do birds tweet tips to build the ultimate nest the perfect moss, twigs and feathers, compare upgrades while glancing at neighboring trees? Are their morning songs full of howtos improvements for the hatching experience which worms provide ultimate first year growth? Do they evaluate whose chick flies first beak prodding, edging young to the side of the nest? Do whales train for the record breaking swim gossip about sleek oils to reduce resistance, or share tips for secret feeding grounds? Do they nose their young to be better, faster, more than the last generation in hope of survival? Do they feel the temperature change of homeland waters and wonder? What does it mean to live up to your full potential? Who decides what that looks like while growing inside a cage of culture we have been born into? More is better or not, faster? Further? More fragile? What says the wisdom of each being? When have I last heard my beating heart? © Ali Grimshaw 2021 Join us at dVerse Open LInk Night - HERE
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.
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
Now as I remove it, I lay it down. It leans back on the bed relaxing into a stretch my stiff body is unable to replicate. It has protected me from the virus all day and expects to have some time off. I breathe in, stretch, and begin to wonder how many words it has caught in the past few months? Words I thought to express but didn't. I hesitate often with thought, with care for myself and others. I don't speak as quickly as I used to. It is not for lack of valuing my voice. It is that the past months have shifted me. In the last year I have wondered more than ever how my words will be heard and where they might land. Looking down now. I realize how often I redirected sentences into my mask instead of sending them. I see so many captured. There are layers of phrases. More than yesterday. Some scribbled from speaking to myself, some barely readable as they were spoken in a whisper under my breath. They are massed together. Jumbled softly in the woven fabric, an unusual relic. Is it worth saving? Is it worth deciphering these undelivered words? What could I learn if I used a magnifying glass to dig backward? revisit the past there is wisdom in Spring rain see today's blossoms © Ali Grimshaw 2021 Napowrimo 2021 Join us on dVerse for Haibun Monday
Some say, Who am I? I need to find myself. I have lost myself. Some ask, How do I go on? How do I begin again? What matters now? There are those who are living as question marks and those who refuse punctuation. When your heart burns away, is cracked to irreparable or crushed to stillness is that the end or the beginning of learning to love? © Ali Grimshaw 2021 Three quotes from a man who left this world too early, Martin Luther King J. May we remember his words.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'”
“At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”
now, before the spark dims and doubt blankets your mind with too comfortable now, before familiar climbs onto your lap with worries, warmly weighty and resignation joins in to pull courage from the room now, before you forget the dreams of befriending a green tree of sunlight the touch of dragonfly landings. © Ali Grimshaw 2020 In this world of ever changing circumstances taking time to slow down with a poem and a small group of thoughtful people is, like a cool glass of water on a hot day, refreshing. I look forward to the opportunity to write with you. Writing together can: • Surprise and delight us • Allow expression of feelings in creative ways • Guide our own journey
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Within this cold capsule
unable to expand, frozen
limbs ache with limitations
of tight thoughts.
let thaw my mind
melting madness, tips to toes
until I sting with vitality
of circulation returning.
unwilling to still my spirit
any longer, wind brings
deliverance of movement.
© Ali Grimshaw 2019
Maybe you’re not late.
Will you trust Mother Earth
with Autumn’s end
even when you don’t feel ready?
Maybe you are right on time
keeping the cycle.
A tree with your own falling leaves.
Maybe your season is happening
just as it should be.
© Alicia Grimshaw 2019
flashlight batteries - Ali Grimshaw 