Persistence

The strength you possess

growing just where you landed

nourished by sparse light

no gardener to tend you

pushing through the cracks

away from your roots

toward warmth of another

to be seen.

© Ali Grimshaw

 

 

 

 

Free Yourself

Cut yourself free

from the weight of all not forgiven

a constricting of vitality, past failures squeeze

the tangle of rope, disallows a full breath.

Each memory binds, an internal tightening

of a time you did not stop it,

didn’t stand up tall for yourself.

Patterns of knots encircle your being.

Twisted, wound round, strangled voice.

If you would have been smarter, stronger, better …

If only you had been more.

© Ali Grimshaw Revised 2018

 

 

Message In The Clouds

Let me send my love to you

lightly floating on the wind.

A force that sails ships across the ocean.

Let my kisses evaporate into the clouds.

When they reach your shore,

love will rain down upon you.

© Ali Grimshaw

 

 

Falling

The falling rain washing clean the road,

pooling for the birds,

freeing the leaves.

These many drops,

falling like the sky wants to share,

a blessing for so many.

Looking at my upturned face,

you wonder why I yearn for dark clouds to let loose.

Pouring forth all they have been holding.

The sky’s release streams down my head, my cheeks.

A trickle drips from my nose tip.

The storm and I let this wind blow through.

The raindrops hiding,

what you will never know,

are tears on my face.

 

© Ali Grimshaw

 

 

The Answer

Now is not the time for tomorrow’s thinking.

Living for when I get there and happiness lands.

Someday solutions for formulaic bliss.

A machine of future making.

Now, is life.

Remove the heavy hat of suffering.

Hang up the wool coat that has been passed down to you.

Slip off the leaden shoes denying your right to skip.

Let your toes feel the mud between them.

Hear the sounds in this space.

Just be,

be your own answer.

© Ali Grimshaw

While You Were Away

While you were away,

my heart expanded,

exploring new pathways,

journeying inside and out.

My life has grown

and yet I have not lost you.

We are still holding the

same thread,

forever woven,

into both of our hearts.

You never left.

while you were away.

© Ali Grimshaw

Dedicated to my dear friend Kirsten Schwabel and with gratitude to Neha’s blog Forgottenmeadows.

 

Within Each of US

Standing among violent shouting,

Angry vibrations pounding near.

Shuddering as the volume increases.

A roar of hate that can consume.

 

Inward I listen.

As the noise recedes,

I follow my breath

to a humming heart.

 

Steady in its love.

It walks where I walk.

It sleeps where I sleep.

 

Noise of the world cannot drown its pulse,

this calming cadence.

Internal rhythm.

 

Strength drawn from all that lives

lies inside me

and all beings.

 

Waiting to be heard.

 

© Ali Grimshaw

 

 

Between The Lines

line straight as the horizon

faintly blue as sky meets sea

each edged finger-width apart

my words lay cushioned by these layers

some smeared by my own hand

it was not by accident that I wrote to you

between the lines and not on them.

© Ali Grimshaw