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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.

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