By: Allison Grayhurst

of mute despair where love
is murdered by a flying breath,
and old age is a house that never opens,
the key was around your neck
and suddenly, you were gone.
Paint bubbles over into
the killing flame. You were stern, yet
so in love with smooth dimensions.
It was our time as I took your arm while we
walked in the icy winter of the forest floor,
watching animals from your cabin window
and feeding the frightened cats.
My pain is newborn but like a boomerang, it is
released over the roaring lake where gulls
descend into the wet pillow of their grave.
How many times I thought you loved me, but
I never knew for certain. I sent you a card
declaring you as my mentor, and how strange
this tree bloomed. Goodbye sweet friend, bride
of nature, spiritual as a weathered stone.
Your visions will always grace my walls,
and tomorrow and tomorrow your memory
will help me to harvest the light
as I grow old.

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Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. She has over 675 poems published in more than 315 international journals and anthologies. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers in 1995. Since then she has published eleven other books of poetry and six collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing. Prior to the publication of Somewhere Falling she had a poetry book published, Common Dream, and four chapbooks published by The Plowman. Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was published by Ottawa publisher above/ground press in December 2012. In 2014 her chapbook Surrogate Dharma was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press, Barometric Pressures Author Series in October 2014. More recently, she has a chapbook Currents pending publication this Fall with Pink.Girl.Ink. Press. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com