Your error is forgetting that you also began as a seed. The starfish that loses an arm still thrives brightly seaward. The coyote howls, then listens through darkness to return to his pack. The angel oak's reach is far and long regardless of scarred branches. Can you see the lacework between the living? Each reaching out tied in small knots is also a receiving. © Ali Grimshaw 2021 Join a welcoming community of poets for OPEN LINK NIGHT at dVerse Poets Pub HERE
Thinly sliced sections of her heart carefully laid bare an inner dissection to find the magnificence of awe that is her heartwisdom. Following faded peak moments mindfully mapped on her skin. Elevations reached, views of reckoning and contours fallen from while yearning led to an evolution of her topography. She continues to traverse past valleys while climbing toward her next becoming still a proposed expedition. © Alicia Grimshaw Rewrite from 2019 dVerse Open Link Night - Join the fun HERE Join me for a writing circle Let me hold space for your voice to appear on the page. Self-Compassion Through Poetry: Writing Circle, Friday, June 25, 10:00 – 11:30 am PDT Register here
releasing herself to the sky to feel the lift let her weight trust in the invisible courage of currents surf soaring free up, over and through this unexpected windscape surrendering her need to know to resolve to figure it out arms wide, in full float with the faith of a bird that doesn't remember a day without flight or a time of being grounded ©Ali Grimshaw 2021 dVerse Open Link Night - Join in the fun HERE. Photo taken in Bozeman, Montana, USA.
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
Poetry has arms to reach beyond borders stretch across isles swim channels of shame while handing our fresh hankies for tears of lost love Poetry has arms to hold, comfort, and allow for all to be felt the sharp, the cut wide open with acceptance Poetry pushes no one away All are welcome through this doorway © Ali Grimshaw 2021 Come write with us. Self-Compassion Through Poetry: Writing Circle Fri, May 7, 2021 10:00 - 11:30 AM PDT Click HERE for more information Let me hold space for your voice. Join a wonderful community of poets for dVerse Open Link Night - HERE
"Without poetry, we lose our way." - Joy Harjo the future of my day is coming from where yours has already taken a seat while I wake, you are closing the book to rest your head in a country covered by stars Here on this pondering path of forest synchronized with the slow passing of light this fern comnunity reaches toward many more than any one person can see and one of them is me a gathering of condolences for this time of separation, green fronds reach to surround me in a forest embrace our fiddlehead hearts, together while apart your voice sits with me, uncurling I am moss damp with missing you © Ali Grimshaw 2021 Join a welcome community of poets at dVerse for Open Link Night - HERE 30 Ways to Celebrate the 25th Annual National Poetry Month Day 3 of National Poetry & Global Poetry Writing Month
Your separation started with a small knot, then the winding began. Strings of storybooks, twined through nights and days of countless fresh starts, repeating circles. The looping of stories wound through our shared days. Up and down on the life school rollercoaster, back when I used to hold your hand. Our faces in the wind a side by side scream of surprise moments you reached out, adding to yourself adding another layer of becoming. While some saw mangled routes and loose ends I envied your brave expanding, overlapping leaps of curiosity to solidify your center. Now you roll down new streets with layers of perseverance over boyish charm a masterpiece touching lives I will never meet. I hope you never stop winding over that small knot, tied while I watched. © Ali Grimshaw 2021 This poem is dedicated to my two amazing sons. I am grateful to be your mother. dVerse Open Link Night - Join a welcoming community of poets HERE.
What if I wrote what could not be spoken of words of depth, concise sentences of discomfort and truth, looped them together with my hand a signatured message unique, like my voice. Left on your desk, enclosed by the folded paper, to find tomorrow or in a haste of reorganizing, leaving you to wonder when it arrived. Would you recognize the writing or disregard then discard it as scrap, all while maintaining focus on achievements of a workplace that doesn't have time for cursive communication? ©Ali Grimshaw 2021 dVerse Open Link Night #288 - Join us.
“Poetry offers the world something that’s small enough to carry close to your heart, and big enough to carry all of the ordinary things that can be encompassed in any one day.” — Pádraig Ó Tuama
Purgation shame sweeping disinfecting disappointment vacuuming deeply the corners of deliberately lost memories I open one eye, hesitant to take a look then squint until rooted in my intention It's possible there is no monster of madness in the closed cupboard of the past just dust bunnies multiplying and the purgation continues. ©Ali Grimshaw 2021 dVerse Open Link Night - Join a welcoming community of poets HERE.
