Difficult Neighbours | Allison Grayhurst

It is hard enough to
relinquish privacy, to love
the tilted child running across
our lawn and shake hands with
the thinning curve of a shadow,
and yet by the standards demanded,
love must be most given when
the enemy appears, when the stone has hit the window
and the fence is knocked down.
Love must be that thing that rises
like a balloon above the forest fire,
and rises when every instinct bares its claws.
And we, the givers of the jewel have no excuse
to hate from inside closed doors,
nor to offer our smiles only when it suites us.
Now is the time spoken of, when the sandbox has
been robbed, when the treeline has been plucked,
and boundaries need to be set.
More at http://www.allisongrayhurst.com.
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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 1000 poems published in over 410 international journals. She has sixteen published books of poetry, seven collections and nine chapbooks. She lives in Toronto with her family. She is a vegan. She also sculpts, working with clay.