At my brother’s funeral last Monday, I thought of all the years we had shared and
of our shared happiness and sorrows.  My eldest brother died last year and Dina
died two years ago.

   HOLDING TOGETHER

Holding together
In some far flung corner
Of yesterday,
We wait in silence
For darkness to separate us. 

Already, it has taken
Those we could not bear to lose.
And like a spoilt child
Who will not pass the ball,
Darkness never gives them back. 

Our tears seem useless,
Yet, every tear proves
The continued existence
Of love.

© 2020 Gwen Grant

Street for Survivors by Hundretwasser

       HOMELAND

The good thing, of course,
Is that there’s plenty of space
In Love for everyone.
Plenty of places
To make ourselves at home
And plenty of time,
What with love being timeless
And all that,
To build a love strong enough
To defeat any trouble
And make a place for us.

                                 ©2020 Gwen Grant

 

LOVERS

Either he came along too late,
Or she was born too soon.
Whichever it was,
Those years they had lost
Were wild and wide and gone,
So they had a lot to catch up on.

On both sides,
There were exciting times to talk through.
For each of them,
Desperate days to walk through.
Still, there was plenty to talk about,
Plenty to discover about each other,
Lover to Lover.

So now, all was well and all was well,
For the living was just beginning.
The two of them, together,
Putting time in its place,
Slipping all those lost hours
Into their pockets,
To be remembered only when they felt
Strong enough to face them.

But not now, they decided, not now
And maybe not ever,
Not when the days were shining,
The nights blazing and burning
With no charred mornings to speak of.
Not when a plain old blade of grass
Spoke of heaven,
The heaven that lay in each other
Now time and love were with them,
New Lover loves New Lover.

Old lovers sent to the car wash.

                                          © 2018 Gwen Grant