This week's Poet of the People is Amy Alley.
Amy Alley is a poet, writer, educator, and artist who I originally met through Cassie Premo Steele. She hosts poetry and art events from Greenwood to Newberry. She is a quiet, nurturing, and generous connector of people and talents and is the keeper of the poetry torch in her corner of South Carolina .
Amy is a talented freelance writer, poet, author, artist, educator, and solo mother of one son who somehow managed to make it to University (hooray!) Because that isn't enough, she is currently training to become a certified yoga teacher. A so-called ‘curator of sophisticated chaos,' she knows what it is like to strive for balance in the throes of a busy, hectic life - but she has learned to breath deep and embrace the flow. She has a passion for service and enjoys helping others express the story they wish to tell through writing and/or art as well as discover new tools for creative expression to promote wellness and wellbeing. She also loves fashion and style, like, a lot.
If You Reached Out
If you reached out
While children clamor at our feet
And on our laps
And people chatter all around us
In a language I fall in and out of understanding
I would take your hand
If you reached out
I would follow you into your world
I would let you lead me
All the way
Because I’m so tired
Of being at the wheel
If you reached out
I would let you teach me
The language of your ancestors
So that I could speak to you
With the same words that
You dream in.
If you reached out
I would let you into my world
Where the solitude you’ve never known
Bears fruit
In color that swirls on the canvases
That you admire so much
If you reached out
I would take you to a place
Where you can hear the owls
Call to one another
Their ancient language one
With the sound of night settling
If you reached out
Across this table
And these children
And these worlds
And languages
And all that seems to lie between us
I would fall into a space
That seems to be as vast
As the night sky
We both dream beneath
Counting the stars
In different languages
Living in worlds
We both fall in and out of
Understanding.
Shoe Fetish
I’ve kicked off more shoes than you could imagine
Wasted, wanton shoes
confining
shoes that fit only for an instant
and never
never ever
let me dance.
I’ve kicked off more shoes that you could imagine
and ran barefoot instead
through meadows of clover and freedom
where nothing is too tight
and I can dance as much as l like
to the tune
of me.
MYCELIAL
I wanted to write about me,
but I am possessive
so it comes out as my
and my mind goes to mycelium
and mycelium is another name
for God, I have been told.
And God was possessive, right?
The source of what connects us all
and it runs deep underneath,
connecting everything to itself.
The fungi know this. There’s
communication down in the deep,
dark spaces where the gods really live.
There’s magic in my and mine and
maybe not so much shame
in wanting to possess something
completely. Mycelial networks
are so intrinsic, a worldwide
web of their own. We don’t see it,
just like we don’t see the internet,
but it’s there all the same, sparking
magical mystical connections.
And there’s magic in me and mine
and he and his and we can’t own
each other but we can think about it.
We can go down deep into
all the dark places below where
the mycelial hyphae of our minds
run like strands of Ariadne’s thread,
under all the layers of us,
and earth is this space where
we finally touch one another,
touch the magic, and watch the light
of it spread to all of our parts.
Black and White Dream
Spring came too early,
again. It seeped in
everywhere, overnight. Dew
glistening on green like
sweat on skin after
making love. Sunny and
74, too early. March 3
is not Spring. A long
afternoon walk leaves me
like dew on green -
anew - as though everything
wasn't breaking down,
as though I'd spent
idle hours with
Wang Ming's Humble Hermit
of Clouds and Woods,
having stumbled upon him
in a black and white
dream, making love between
cups of tea in his
thatched cottage, hidden
by ink branches and
boughs of pine. And
why not, when everything
is breaking, broken. At least
once before, this scene, in a
dream, waking up
like dew on green
leaves - anew - but not
enough. I have spent days
in woods, in clouds, in
meditation, trying to find
my feet back on that
jagged path. Hermits like
to make us think that they
are wise, but I take
my gurus with a grain of salt
these days. Fragile as me
they are, and just
as broken. Spring has come
too early, again. And everything
is breaking, broken, except
the black ink branches and
pine boughs that hide
a thatched cottage where
lives the man who
prefers silence and solitude
to the chaos of Spring. Who
prefers his loneliness
to my black and white
dream. Who doesn't see
everything breaking, broken,
who doesn't see me
blinded is he
by a warm Spring sun.
Too early.
Last Night I Dreamt of Pow Wows
Last night I dreamt of friends long past
Divorced from one another
And otherwise scattered
Lost to the winds of time
Lost to the miles between us
Lost to themselves
And lost to me.
But for a moment
Together again.
Some long ago powwow
Where we laughed and sang together
And danced under starshine
To a drum as familiar
As the beating of my own heart.
I wake up
Wanting to reach out
Find everyone
And bring us all together again.
But my heart says no
It is a time long past
They are lost to the winds of time
Lost to the miles between us
Lost to themselves
And lost to me.
I begin my day nostalgic
With the memory of moccasins on soft earth
Keeping time with a drum
That fell silent long ago.
Making War
The way of the peaceful warrior
is not my way. I fight.
Against the grain, against
myself. Against the oppression
of cultural expectations and
societal norms. What is normal
anyway, the collected insanity
of the masses? Peace
is not achieved without a fight.
Inner, outer, it doesn’t matter.
You have to slay the demons, and
they fight back, scratching and biting
and you bleed and your blood flows
to all the inner and outer places. And
They don’t go down easily, no. Begging
and pleading and willing them away
won’t work. You have to fight back. That’s
why it’s important that you know how.
You, sitting on your velvet cushion with your hands
folded, thinking “Namaste,” you better know
how to throw – and take – a punch. Because
the way of the peaceful warrior is not
achieved through the bliss
of meditation, no. It takes the screaming of war
to get to that place, inner or outer,
where peace resides. It takes
making war on yourself
to stop making war
on the rest of the world. It takes
fighting back. Hard.
And you get stronger, scrappier. And
wounded. But the bleeding
stops. And scarred, you put away your sword,
for now. You can only be
a peaceful warrior if you put
it down completely.
And you might.
But I fought too long
and too hard for the right
to hold mine
to just let it go. I’ll
put it away, though. And I’ll sit
on a velvet cushion, with
my hands folded and think “Namaste”
all day. I will
be peaceful.
I will.
You should know, though…
in a moment’s notice
I can be armed
and ready for war
in the event
that you choose
to wage it.
