Finding Our Way – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 31 Comments
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I am a lighthouse who sometimes 
has a broken bulb.

I fear for the ships that are navigating 
dark shorelines without my beam.

I hold responsibility for safe passage 
while boats toss hand to hand by a storm. 

I appreciate you noticing my blackened filament
seeing my burnt days without judgment

offering a replacement orb to restore my beacon.

I return to rusting hulls along the shoreline with my light
watch the shadows change their appearances.

I wonder what difference my listening light
could have made in their journey.

Yet, losing our way is also how we find each other.

In darkness, trust your heartbeat navigator 
the light is there, and you will find it.

© Ali Grimshaw 2026


Please join a welcoming group of poets at dVerse Poets Pub. It is Open Link Night. Share one poem of your own HERE.

Please join us for our first LIVE session of 2026 on Saturday, January 17th, from 10 to 11 AM EST.
Click on the Google Meet link below to join us with audio and video:

https://meet.google.com/ens-tohx-wjq 

Come sit in on our LIVE (video and audio) session. Read aloud a poem of your choosing, join in the informal conversation OR simply sit in and listen. We always have people from around the globe, all speaking in English.

This photo was taken on the Oregon Coast near Coos Bay.

My Hibernaculum – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 33 Comments
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within a velvet-soft interior
with a rocking chair enhancement

humming songs of ease
murmurs of a river echoing back

pine-warmth abundance of fresh
beginnings welcoming endings

encircled by a clear frozen glaze
of quiet just rightness

overflowing contentedness
safety of the heart

© Ali Grimshaw 2025

Join a welcoming group of poets 
at dVerse Poets’ Pub 
for Quadrille #238- HERE

Hibernaculum – a noun for a winter shelter or place of hibernation

Morning Pantoum – By Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 36 Comments
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How lucky am I to wake this bright morning?
Safely carried through night's passage.
Like steadfast mountains often forgotten.
While dreams retreat, my feet find the floor.

Safely carried through night's passage.
Joining the color stream of these hours.
While dreams retreat, my feet find the floor.
River stones are worn smooth with time.

Joining the color stream of these hours.
Letting love's current ease my way.
River stones are worn smooth with time.
Hand in hand is our way forward.

Letting love's current ease my way.
Like steadfast mountains often forgotten.
Hand in hand is our way forward.
How lucky am I to wake this bright morning?

© Ali Grimshaw 2025

Join a welcoming group of poets 
at dVerse Poets’ Pub for Open Link Night. HERE

Photo taken during a stunning mountain hike in Montana.
2025



Ephemeral – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 44 Comments
Image

This calm is only an illusion
a photographic alteration 
of a moment, where

leaves confetti-whirl, flutter fly, fancifully
surfing wild winds with surrender.

Smiling, I accept their invitation to frolic
following one golden riffle
then a tangerine-red

in beautiful celebration 
of all things temporary.

© Ali Grimshaw 2025

Join a welcoming group of poets at dVerse Poets’ Pub. 
Quadrille Monday. HERE

Photo taken on one of my many walks through Amsterdam in 2019.

It is the season of contemplation – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 36 Comments
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“We have an inner window through which we can see the world, and though it gets cloudy in life, it’s our job to wipe it clean and see things as they really are.” – Sebastian Koch

It is the season of contemplation
a time of wanting to flee while knowing stillness is the way forward.

I am seeking windows of all sizes
expansive with weatherproof panes, outlooks rippled with time.

Views to heal my confusion between rain and questions.
A skylight to observe the assurance of passing moon.

As the headlines continue to scream, I find another window holding
steadiness of trunks wide and wise from centuries, leaves of rainshine.

Curtains of my imagination sway with a peaceful breeze.
There is another way, another view, a possibility of love yet found.

I unshutter pain to let the air in.

© Ali Grimshaw 2025

The seed of this poem came from a prompt on dVerse Poets Pub and this inspiring view from a cabin in Oregon. Every time I return to this photo it settles me. 

Come join a welcoming group of poets for Open Link Night - HERE. Link a poem of your choosing.

A Book Can Change You – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 40 Comments
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Within the pages she is flying to another world.
Between the pages he is trying on a new character.
They are finding a way forward through angst, despair
wanting to belong.
He is reconsidering his past through their eyes.
She is listening to his reasons for forgiveness.

Living in another time and place
trying on the suits, gear or gowns.
Gently turning or furiously flipping to find the next
wonder or conclusion.

Is there a safer way to explore than within a story
laid out for your eyes to absorb 
a world
that you have never seen?

To try on the life of another?

© Ali Grimshaw 2025

“I merely wish to point out that in the face of such a world you have only yourselves to rely on. You have only the decision you must make, each of you, alone. And will you contribute to the indifferent forces that ceaselessly conspire toward injustice? Or will you stand up against this endless tide and in the face of it be truly human?”
― David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars

This poem was inspired by a prompt from dVerse Poets Pub, and this quote from a book I loved. Come join a welcoming group of poets for Open Link Night.

This is just one of many books on the list of Most Commonly Challenged Books In the U.S. Although I read Snow Falling on Cedars many years ago, I can still remember how it touched my heart and made me think deeply.

This is a photo of a bookstore from one of my trips. Can’t remember where.

Paddling away – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 37 Comments
Image

I float with the current, closing my eyes with trust

in September sky and the horizon of letting go.

While the river laps a rhythmic lullaby for my breath

to rest upon. I join this waterway that knows how

to reach the sea without a plan.

Here, birdcalls settle in my ears warmly.

Here on the water, a quieting motion

outside of what humans have named.

© Ali Grimshaw 2025

Join a welcoming group of poets at dVerse Poets’ Pub HERE. 

Photo of me afloat on the Tualatin River in Oregon.

Wandering From Room To Room – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 38 Comments
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outside my window some leaves still shine deep green while others
yellow to crisp edges

like differing rooms living through seasons of this house
holding a room of restful freshness
and outdated rooms yet to be revisited with today's view

a room of gatherings present and past
decades of dents and scratches, musicians and boardgames
voices absorbed by the grain of the enduring oak table

stairs where I have fallen with my hands full
and stairs where we held hands to steady the climb upward

there is a room where floating memories lighten as dust sparkles
another where music lives among the dancing shadows

today wet paint will secret away stories of the many inhabitants
while I alone remember the layers underneath

a treasured gratitude for a life within safe walls

when the golden leaves fall this September 
who might enter through my blue sky doorway?

© Ali Grimshaw 2025

Join a welcoming group of poets at dVerse Poets’ Pub HERE. This prompt was inspired by Albert Garcia’s poem “August Morning,”

This is not my house, but a blue door I photographed in France in 2019.

My house does have a blue door.

Untitled – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 32 Comments
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She arrived alone.

An ocean away from her homeland
heart strong, with eagerness of empty hands.

Her name was Gunda
from the land of the Vikings
after legendary women of indomitable spirit.

What ways of living did she hold close
while settling in season after season
birthing babies her mother would never meet?

Did she ever regret leaving the nest
for this new unknown tree, after

she arrived alone?


© Ali Grimshaw 2025

This poem is in honor of my great-grandmother who came, by herself, to the U.S. from Norway when she was 18 years old. I don't know much about her but writing this made me curious and now I have fallen down a rabbit hole of websites to learn more.

The photo is a mural from Hillsboro, Oregon.

Join us at dVerse Poets' Pub 
write a cherita, HERE.








Never Stop Becoming – Poem by Ali Grimshaw

~ Ali Grimshaw ~ 16 Comments
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and if 

and if she had not become 

quite so tame 

what trees might she be at the top of now?





how many times has her heartvoice been drowned out
by training wheels and forced rewrites of others?

it is never too late to nourish, curve toward the sun





she is a flower like all flowers





her wildness knows how to bloom





without advice

© Ali Grimshaw 2025