Please don’t give up on love.

enlight1

Go and find love today

for it surrounds us like

good soup from a friend,

sunlight through trees,

the laughter of children.

Give love today and you will

feel its touch.

Happy Valentine’s Day to my friends around the world!

The Open Space

love is an open space

not yet filled place

a hand reaching out

ready

without expectation

 

large, tiny, tattooed, wrinkled

skin darker or lighter

held out to you

love is there

if you return the

reach.

© Ali Grimshaw 2017

#Loveuary and Love Day Blog Party at But I Smile Anyway…

Solitude of the heart

In the solitude of these chambers

my heart remembers how to breathe.

Cool air pulled in, an inflation of freedom

expansion completed. To rise and fall,

again, again, again…

My internal rhythm,

muscles in unison,

ceaselessly at work,

to fill me from toes to earlobes,

without my acknowledgement

or praise.

An intake of peaceful,

taken for granted,

to keep this heart beating

another day.

© Ali Grimshaw 2017

Celebrate #Loveuary with the blog But I Smile Anyway

Photo Challenge – Solitude

Love is never closed for business.

enlight1

With love there is always room at the table.

Bring what you have to share

even if it is just a memory, a song.

Together we will make a meal to feed

not just our stomachs

our souls shall be satisfied

nourished through connection.

Your stories on my tongue

sweet and savory.

© Ali Grimshaw 2017

 

Celebrate #Loveuary with But I Smile Anyway…

 

The future of heartbreak

“How do you keep your heart whole?” he asked. “I can’t bear the breaking.”

“You don’t,” she whispered. “Let it crack open,

like a ruby pomegranate full of moments you have been alive.
Tear away the soft sides, let the jeweled pieces scatter.

They will be found.  Picked up by the parched,
carried forward into days where hearts
will be strong enough to break, expand.”

“I am not that strong.” he said, shaking his head.

Tearing off a part of her own heart.

“Take some of my mine, you will be.”

© Ali Grimshaw 2017

#Loveuary – share the love this month with But I Smile Anyway…

Heart wide open

Today I wrote a gift for you

my pen pulled my hand along, (it is braver than I)

it knows how to lay my heart wide open,

like a prairie to the sky

nowhere to hide, expansive and still

miles from adequate for what I wish to give.

© Ali Grimshaw 2017

February is the month of love. I will be celebrating with love poems all month long.

#Loveuary – inspired by Ritu at But I Smile Anyway…

Photo credit to Nicolas T.

 

Will you be a rainbow?

Not qualified, no certificate, diploma

just a person, regular, no one special.

Who me? I don’t know how. Where would I start?

Listen. Open your heart. Look. Open your eyes.

An opportunity right in front of you. Yes, right there.

It won’t matter. I don’t count. It’s too late.

No one ever tires of a rainbow coming through the clouds.

Your colors impossible to see from an internal view

vivid in the eyes of those waiting.

© Ali Grimshaw 2017

Dr. Maya Angelou – Thank you for reminding me that I can be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud and to take all the rainbows of my life with me wherever I go.

Rainbow photo thanks to pixabay.com/en/rainbow-kelvenne-national-park-1372108/

Holding Hands

image

As we stand together

the ocean’s roar a comfort

lullaby of constant.

You squeeze my hand.

I echo the motion.

Reliable rolling waves,

we count on

when the world is crashing.

© Ali Grimshaw 2017

The Daily Post Photo Challenge – Ambience