PRESENT ETERNITY

If she had to cut her coat
According to her cloth,
The old girl knew
It was going to be a damn thin coat,
Nowhere near thick enough
To keep out the cold.

Glancing into a passing shop window,
She felt absolutely fed-up,
For the coat she had been wearing
For all of her present eternity
Was thin, too, and wrinkled,
Needing an iron.

But, sighing, she knew she would
Patch it up a few more times
Before she was ready to change it.

                                         © Gwen Grant

         THE IRON MAN

I saw an iron man on the way north.
He was digging in a field of red earth,
The earth so red
It matched his rusty bones.
As we drew closer,
I saw with my own eyes
It was not an iron man, of course,
But some old farm machinery
Abandoned in a hedge,
Left to rot in the hard, cold hand of winter.

That iron man will never dig the red earth out.
Never throw a spadeful over his shoulder.
Yet men of iron and we, of blood and bone,
Have one thing in common.
We all need someone to help us.
They to have their rusty bones made bright again.
We to have our rusty hearts made new,
To shine again.

The iron man will have to wait until times change,
Until someone shows up who loves old farm machinery.
But our help has already shown up,
For hope will change us
And love will shine up the world.

                                                     © Gwen Grant

                   I THINK OF LOVE 

On this dark night as I lay in my bed,
The starry sky above me,
Stars falling into the slow cold sea,
Making mermaids with pink shelled fingers,
Catching mermen rolling shells of moonlight
Onto a silent silvered shore,
On this dazzling night of a slow sea whispering,
I think of love. 

Riffling through my dreams,
I remember days so bitter, my soul wept.
I call back days of sunlight and glory,
Sparkling still in kindly splendour
As I remember,
As I think of love. 

Then to the small flower
Pressed between thin pages of a book I love.
Love meeting love.
Scarlet once, now all radiance gone,
This little bud faded to a crumpled petal
As delicate as a strand of mermaid’s hair,
Serenely floating through stormy water,
Yet with the power to scent the years to come. 

And I think of love,
As stars fall and dazzle the darkness,
As the slow cold sea whispers
Love is a victory,
Love is a story,
Love is a song written by lovers,
Sung by love. 

And I think of love. 

                                   © Gwen Grant

                      THAT OLD DINOSAUR BIRD 

That old dinosaur bird came galumphing down the river
Like an aeroplane on its last legs,
Whose engine is bumping and jumping
Through the twilit air. 

Not the most graceful bird,
But incredibly beautiful in a Picasso’ish kind of way,
And Picasso would be thrilled to paint him
If he had his time again,
And make of that heron
A rapturously lovely, joyful,
Sort of dazzling cubist display. 

Uh oh, there he goes again!
Crashing down so close to the water
He could dip his long archaic beak
Into the river and spear a fish.
Or seize that crouching ginger cat watching him
And flip it into the trees for the fun of it. 

‘SPLASH’ he goes, and the whole river shudders,
Other birds whistle and shake their heads,
‘Dinosaur bird,’ you can almost hear them say,
‘When are you ever going to learn to land
In a proper, elegant, bird-of-flight’ish sort of way?’
But that bony bird doesn’t care.
He just flaps away.

                                                           ©  GWEN GRANT