Turned
I turn my head
stiff with anxiety’s brutality and shame.
I fill my lungs with the cold fumes
of survival and find myself
lost from the legacy of miracles on my garments,
lost from the jewels under every stone in my yard.
I turn my head
and I see again the gifts that pull me through,
every time, each time at the last minute.
So why do I suffer in doubt, blistering
with fears that never hold water? The world
teaches me it is calculating and void of mercy.
God teaches me of only mercy, of treasures
astounding and undeserved but given with the love
of a thousand parents to their only child, teaches
me not to listen to the babbling crowd so full
of good advice and my future’s concerns.
God speaks of grace, with grace manifesting at each
brick corner I face. At every impossible deliverance,
I am delivered.
I release my held-back breath.
I accept your goodness like a song that has finally
developed to fruition, sunning the darkness
once so coveted
in my head -
turned.
Purest Obedience
Like a fierce wind
driven by the fires of Jerusalem, he
overtakes me from my eyelashes to my
fingernails, mends the hole in my sock,
the scar on my lip.
Like a new truth spoken, like the
veils of God dropping, he calls me
to his table, cleans my confusion,
spins me on my axle and holds his hand to mine.
He is the one thing guiding,
the one that takes all else into itself,
saturating me with good fear
and with the safety that children know
beside a parent's accepted love.
© Allison Grayhurst
Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. Three times nominated for Sundress Publications “Best of the Net” 2015, she has over 880 poems published in over 390 international journals. She has twelve published books of poetry, seven collections, nine chapbooks, and a chapbook pending publication. She lives in Toronto with her family. She is a vegan. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com