How do you capture
a lifetime of fatherhood
put it down on the page?
Your voice in times of doubt
your hand on my shoulder
your cup always half full.
Yet, it wasn’t what you said
year after year that I remember most
you stood beside
you held up others
you lead with love.
You showed me.
Dedicated to my dearly loved father, Thomas Jenkins, who has fathered many over the years as an educator and coach. No words will ever be enough to tell you how much I love you.
© Alicia Grimshaw 2017
© Alicia Grimshaw 2017
There is no hourglass
of time
in love.
It matters not,
if months or years pass,
love is beyond physical bodies
beyond boundaries.
Like a favorite song
heard from the middle of the tune.
There is no less joy to listen.
Locked away, rust resistant
“Love has no expiration date.”
© Alicia Grimshaw 2017
Photo taken in 2016 while hiking on the Cinque Terre in Italy.
© Alicia Grimshaw 2017
Under the tree, sitting
knee to knee while
randomly, snow petals
drift down between us.
‘How can we begin again?
After all, I don’t trust.
I have forgotten how, or…
maybe I never knew.’
While branches above blossom yearly
growth regardless of weather.
‘I guess the question is,
how badly do I
want to blossom?’
© Alicia Grimshaw 2017
“Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.” — Carl Sandburg, from The Atlantic, March 1923.
In beauty’s shadow
a crisp line, clearly defined
elegance of shape
where darkness and light kiss,
yet keep their boundaries
brought forth by the sunlight
and those who choose to stand in it.
© Alicia Grimshaw 2017
Photo by Kirsten Schwabel (Thank you Kirsten for the beauty.)
Happy National Poetry Day 2017
flashlight batteries - Ali Grimshaw 