This poem accompanied one of the paintings that went on exhibition at Southwell Minster. I wrote a poem for each painting and it was so lovely to see them in that beautiful setting. The area they were hung in was a shadowed place with the cool grey stones and tall columns making it seem eternal.
LOVELY WINTER
Bitter winter, I exult in you.
You are my gift, my shroud, my winding sheet,
My creative death,
Pausing me in a frozen still-life
So that other life can break in,
Changing still-life to full life.
Lovely, lovely winter,
With all your subtle colour,
Your peerless blues and high violets flushing
the snow,
Your avalanche of lemon light and tender light
Whose sight
Makes me shake and shiver,
Shaking loose the hidden smoulder
Of scarlet tipped berries burning through darkness.
Those bonfires of memory reminding us
Of the steady scintillation of our hearts.
How I love your cold breath
Blowing me always into a new passion.
Blow, winter winds!
Blow your bitter chills until the sky dances,
The sea rages
And all the plump little mermaids
Leap to the surface of the holy water.
Mermaids who laugh at the scunning ships,
At the flag-sailed ships of myth and story,
Bringing us cargoes of dreams and coral and lost sea-horses,
All touched with glory.
Look! Look!
Look at the beauty of winter.
Look at the white peacocks flirting with the frosty hoar.
Look at the dark clouds racing darkly over the water
Towards the great-beaked swan
Who pecks gold from the tight-skeined air.
© Gwen Grant
Poems by Gwen Grant 