Light does not fall on us equally.
There are hours of gentle illumination, while some remain in shadow.
Random flashes which leave you for no reason at the front of the line.
Or the end, randomly burned, scorched,
with head shaking disbelief. Tranquil dusk light on leaves.
Other days blinded into paralysis, unable to see a way forward.
I remain in a thundercloud waiting room, counting shadows like minutes.
Weatherizing my soul before the next hurricane.
Steadfast, determined in my stance, for a return of the glow
In stillness it will find me.
Sun’s warm hand on my back again.
This too shall pass
Ali Grimshaw 2017
Weather Forecast was first published on Vita BrevisVita BrevisPress is a bestselling small publisher dedicated
to emerging and established poets, circulating their work
in an online magazine and in physical anthologies.
A big thank you to Susi Bocks for sharing my voice on, “The Short of It.” I invite you to visit her site, iwriteher.com, for a reading of my short poems including this one. Thank you to all the readers that keep poetry alive.
Thunderstorm Conversations
Lean into the loud
hold curiosity’s hand
consider this thundering
consider it may not mean what you thought.
This crack clashing boom
only an illusion of danger.
Maybe it isn’t a disastrous end
but a calling of resounding strength
a breaking through from your ancestors
reverberating out across the sky,
“We are with you.”
Ali Grimshaw 2020
Writing together provides a mirror for us to process life in a safe place where we have all agreed to listen with compassion. Thank you to all of you who have written with me in the last few months. I am so very grateful to share this journey with you. I have added this new date and time to open up the invitation to others in different time zones. Let’s connect across the boarders. Stay safe my friends.
We are balancing between the blocks of our days large and small. Squares filled with the demands of our days and squares now left open. Boxes where plans once sat in happy company with future anticipation. Now canceled without pattern. Just scattered openings in the grid. Emptiness at first look, then disbelief. As we walk farther down the street, grief standing next to disappointment. Finally we turn the corner and see a tiny new patio garden. Someone is intent on growing beauty from strong willed, concrete pots. The first sprouts are just reaching free.
Determined seeds rise
there is always a crack, wide
enough for thriving
Lisbon, Portugal
This Haibun Monday over at dVerse Poets Pub we have a visual prompt. It was an new adventure for me. Click here to join the challenge.
And so we grow,
In winds bent back
Against the storms
And lightning strikes.
Headlong,
Rise up,
Unfurl
In splendour
And well-lit grace
Of Swift footsteps
That forever change
And twist
In those brief sorrows
Of untrained reach
And growth in silent tears;
That dry in hope
And sunlight given.
The rope winds gently around my waist,
twisted, smoothly strong by years of mistakes,
trying again, doubt and wondering how.
Thick with memories of others who
believed with the strength of solid ground.
Believed that all earthquakes eventually stop shaking.
Believed in soil’s ability to grow what we need next.
The end of this rope was handed to me long ago.
A generous lifeline offered for free
to keep me on the planet.
Now I look down at the rope in my calloused hands,
threads of the millions, an explosion of frayed ends,
their forgivings, endurance,
the woven learnings of my ancestors.
The rope loops back and around me,
over and over,
then off into the distance.
I don’t need to see the end now
to trust it is anchored deeply somehow.
