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

            THE OLD GIRL LOOKS BACK

The old girl said she has always maintained
That it isn’t only the immediate pain
Of failed relationships and even gently worse dramas,
It was the acquired pain of never seeming to do anything right,
That had a terrible, wearying energy
To trouble and torment, to hurt and to bite.

So that even when she was at home, door closed and locked behind her,
That old fraud, Failure, sneaked in through the letterbox.
Not sneakily enough, though, for she could always hear that metal mouth clicking,
Mimicking the arrival of an excellent invitation,
Even whilst spitting one more disaster into the pockets of her mind
Where she found it did what it was meant to do,
Snipping chunks off her, only leaving an arm and leg behind,
Plus its own spiteful mouth that fed on her disasters and fiascos.

She had plenty of experience, claiming as a serious work attempt,
Her lists and paintings, her songs and riffs of guitar
As a legitimate and generous employment.

The old girl frowned as she surveyed the wreckage behind her,
And the very uncertain structure of the future in front of her.
Aware that some prosperous bodies (they know who they are),
Would claim her entire existence a train crash of gargantuan proportions,
Whilst others, (she knows who they are), would maintain any created creations
Tumbles such so-called disasters to Lilliputian dimensions.

‘Well,’ the old girl scowled, irritably surveying it all,
Glaring at her life story, hating every word printed in Bold,
Or in the margins palely loitering.

Well,’ she said again, then recklessly seized by a fit of giggles,
Tore the wretched thing up.  At the last minute pulling from her pocket
A wisp of yellow chiffon, which, scented with a really weird incense,
Blew the whole kit-and-caboodle out of existence.  Good riddance.

                                                     © 2020 GWEN GRANT

Last Thursday?
That was the very hot day
When the wood pigeon laid down on the grass
To rest.
Wisely turning its head from side to side,
Watching for magpies
And for crows,
Knowing that if they spot him
He’ll have to move fast,
Unfurling his wings and ready for flight
In an instant.

For these killer birds,
Given half a chance
Will peck him to death.
Unpicking his feathery body
Until it lay all around him on the baking grass.
Dove grey feathers dotted with blood
Lying silent in the hot sun.
His agony fading in the morning air.

This small bird is careful
Not to let that happen to him.
Taking off the moment the long dark leaves
On the Cherry tree begin to shake.
Hiding the unfriendly presence
That has already landed
With its iron beak and deadly intentions.

So that’s him gone then,
Soaring into the sun,
His wings almost the colour of rain,
Vanishing into the trees in the summery distance.

©2026 GWEN GRANT

     FUTURE TENSE

The old girl lay sleepless in her bed,
Eyes staring through the dark,
Fretting at a future she couldn’t see,
Worrying at the hours and days and weeks
That lay before her.
Sleepless, she sighed again and again
‘If only I knew what the future will bring.’
Until the future, hiding behind the door,
Listening keenly, stepped in.

Picking up two particularly heavy days,
It smacked them round her head.
‘That’s one thing,’ it said.

 Then selecting an especially lovely
String of hours,
Gently laid them round her neck.
‘And that’s another,’ it said.
‘Now, before I go, is there anything else
You want to know?’

 ‘No,’ the old girl whispered, shaking her head,
Turning quick and over in her bed.
‘If it’s alright with you,
I’ll look at the stars instead.’

 ‘Good thinking,’ the future said.

                        © 2017 /26 GWEN GRANT