ONE AND ONE

She had forgotten how to count.
‘One and one,’ I said.
Fast answer.
‘Seventeen.’
‘Not quite.’ A long frowning silence.
‘Let’s try again.’ I said.

She was in a room of her own
Down a long brown corridor.
And she hated it.
Couldn’t remember how she’d got there
But the silence, the empty spaces, the bare walls,
With no-one to talk to or smile at,
And no-one to talk to her or smile back,
Just piled sadness on sadness.

Then, her eyes clearing,
‘Thirty-nine,’ she cried.
Until reading my face, frowned and went on,
‘That’s probably wrong.’

‘If only George was here,’ she fretted.
‘He’d soon put things right.’
But my Dad was long gone,
His warmth and kindness
Lying under a marble headstone
And a bunch of daffodils.
IN LOVING MEMORY
Tick-tocking above his good name.

‘One and one. Seventeen,’ she tried again.

I was tempted to let that go.
After all, seventeen wasn’t that far from one.
When suddenly, surprising us both,
‘Two!’ she rapped out. ‘One and one make two.’
And the long sun slid across the wall,
Her eyes closed. Tired now,
Half sleep, she whispered, ‘Do you remember
The Kingfisher swooping over green water?’

© GWEN GRANT

 August,
The time of sunshine
And curly roses.
Of colour and the sea
Rushing along wet sand.

Summer days,
Slowly unfolding
Never-ending moments
Of dazed love,
Of unexpected joy.

Until the first shadows
Touch us,
And we are all lost
In the beauty of a quiet evening.

Wanting only to live
And live again
The glory of these sunny days

And their endless
Summer promises.

            ©2026 GWEN GRANT

Impossible as it seems now, when I was a child and  very poorly, I was sent to
an Open Air School 300 and more miles from where I lived. 
All the little girls, including me, slept in Wards with windows wide open every
night and had a routine which was totally, utterly foreign to me.  I was a Northerner
in the  midst of Southerners and absolutely everything was different.
You were discouraged from crying and it still physically hurts when I cry now.
However, because of that school, I’m here to tell the tale!  I wrote a book about that
year there, KNOCK AND WAIT, which is the second book in my trilogy
PRIVATE-KEEP OUT, KNOCK AND WAIT and ONE WAY ONLY, the book I wrote when
I got back home.   PRIVATE- KEEP OUT is available on PENGUIN Children’s Classics.

  THE SCHOOL I WAS SENT TO

The first time I saw the school I had been sent to,
I thought it was a school for witches,
For the great house leaning against the forest
Was dark as night.
With only its snaggle toothed windows blazing in the moonlight.

Of course, it wasn’t a school for witches.
They only visited.
Swooping in through the open tops of windows
On their broomsticks,
Trying to make out they were the shadows of trees.
Bumping to a stop in the middle of the dormitory,
Where nothing could move them.

Nothing, that is, until Sister Sweet came crackling in,
All fiery with starch and bad temper.
Her purple hands so big, entire cities were built on her palms.
She made them shift.
The only thing I ever had Sister Sweet to thank for,
In the whole year I spent at that school I was sent to.

                                                                     ©  2018 GWEN GRANT

Last night, in the middle of the push of heat,
I found myself thinking about the Japanese Maple
we bought years and years ago to plant in our then
garden. I could almost feel that frost settling on
this lovely tree. Then, in the Spring, it came into
glorious red and gold and green life. This tree carried
its own gifts with it which last for ever in the thankful
mind.

JAPANESE MAPLE

Japanese Maple,
A long way
From your own country,
Facing the cold blue night,
Snow dusting
Your lovely shoulders.
The Autumn sun
Long since forgotten.

©2022 GWEN GRANT