Poems by Gregory Grandison

Prologue

25 years ago

See me

Feel me

Taste me

Touch me

Here and gone and here again

Living, dying, born again

Moving, flowing, ceasing, stopping

Flowing, going once again.

See me

Feel me

Touch me

Heal me

I Want To Remember

I Want To Remember 

What weight feels like when one  ( I )
         take it  -- Walking  -- leg muscles,  feet,
         knees,  lower back,  neck. 

 What the breeze feels like. 

What tears are. 

What the heart,   The Heart,   opening
         feels like. 

What a falling leaf does   

What a falling leaf does when it hits the,    lands
          on the,   water. 

Melancholy    Music
Love     Tenderness
Fullness    Strength
Completion    Power  

How to reach out 

How to overcome   grief
   reticence
   uncertainty
   shyness  

I  Want  To  Remember  

God  

Self  

and  Mary

Walking with the breath
Breathing
Sunlight
Why

What comes next after you’re    ( I’m )    ( We’re )   done?   

        You    I     We  /    You      Me      Us    /    You’re      I’m      We’re

 Oona Mia singing  --  Clear,  clarity,  crisp, 

  a sharpness without being sharp.    

  The high notes,  the upper atmosphere. 

Sleep
Eat
Drink
Love
Not necessarily in that order.  

[ If you could have only one,
       Which would it be? ] 

How to bridge the gap    --    especially
           and stay unexpecting,  not needy. 

How to tolerate the space, that 

            ambiguity, that uncertainty. 

The Heart opens
       -- not easily
       -- not without pain 

a creaky door
  unused
  The      ______      space  --  not dark 

              --  not
                --  blank
              --  but more than blank. 

The space between the silences. 

Tears as joy.
        The Transformation.
        Like  “Chaos”  to   “Order”.
        Pain and sorrow to sublime joy.
         Quiet, rocking gently on little waves. 

From active and powerful   (  to some,    frightening ) 

 To present and presence and quiet and powerful. 

*******************************************************************

A Letter to My Angel

How was it I did not know you were there?

Did my mother rock me or was that you?

Did you breathe life into me when I could breathe only enough 

        to survive?

Did you revel in my play?

Yet watch close by?

Surely you were there at Khe Sanh!

And brought alive the Nature Spirits in that dead place as you did 

        when I was a child.

Am I ready, now, finally, to receive you? Or will I still try to hide?

Those times where you had to stand by me, only to witness and 

        not intervene.  Were those times also hard for you?

Did you whisper in my ear? Did you witness in my dreams?

Somehow I got through!

Somehow we got through! 

Authentic Movement 

At night.

In a dreamless state, awake.

Looking into the dark and

Into the dark spaces

Unseen in my soul.

My Guardian Angel, yes you, there last year,

Just behind my left shoulder

But unseen.

I go back in time, 1 year, 2, 5, 10, to age 3.

The silhouettes, the hints of the patterns

Lightly sketched, etched on the photographic plate of my soul

To slowly be revealed

When submerged in the liquid of movement.

I am touched.

So that’s where this liquid life emerges 

     through the fountain I used to call my eyes.

Another answer given to a question

     not yet recognized.

And the lifting of the veils continues

In this protective womb.

And the fountain flows.

Open Circle

In the end was the light

Circles

Rolling

Rising

Down

In   -   Inward   -   Into

Heart exposed,  pierced,

Into pain,   Into tears,   Into birth,

     Welcoming pain,

  For without the pain,

    there is no healing

  And without the healing,

    there is no feeling

  And without the feeling,

    there is no life.

I am dead,  I am dying,  I am death itself.

  Master of all, Master death

  and

    Master all.

I am a Man and I welcome the pain,

for it tells me I am alive

    and I live.

God, pierce my breast, tear it open

Reach in, match my pain

and heal me.