THE KILLING FROST
Winter, and the last snow of the year,
Hard frost following.
Its glittering fingers weaving
Over the cherry tree,
Tickling the tight red buds
Which would not open
To the guile of winter
And the cold cold sunlight,
To the spiteful icy kisses
Of the killing frost,
Killing the promise
Of the cherry blossom.
Listen, Lovers.
When frost touches the heart,
It’s all over.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
A SHORT HISTORY OF A COMPLEX LIFE
The woman who ate the moon
Lives in the trees down by the river.
Wait! I tell a lie!
She actually lives on some small landing
Up a flight of stairs halfway to heaven,
Or resides at the bottom of a cellar temporarily,
Standing on dark, unseen tiles,
Cold, mysterious and unsettling.
Looking fantastically familiar
Should you ever catch a glimpse of her.
She has a habit of singing through the dark hours.
Sometimes of how she is made of paper
Inclined, at times, to burst into flame.
Her mind is full of brushed glass pieces
Picked up on the beach, blown lovely
By the steady rushing of the wind-blown sea,
With pebbles, sea-shells, starfish, mermaids
And the bones of the dead rattling amongst them.
After she swallowed the moon, she held it tight within,
Complaining, sometimes, that light shone right through her
And only dragons, biting and marauding, could save her,
Lending her their teeth.
At night, the sky is alive with heroes,
Blazing shields held up and ready to meet the morning.
Great wings of strength and beauty beating behind them
As they go seeking the woman who ate the moon.
But she would only let in
Those who left their shields and wings at home
As she was extremely busy making her own history.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
ONLY CONNECT
That place where you should be
Is empty,
But I’ve been thinking
That maybe if I learnt
To send signals into nowhere,
You would hear them
And somehow,
After all these years,
We could connect.
Begin again.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
PLACES OF INTEREST
There are no more
Unshed tears
Or unshared laughter
Now these Lovers
Have found each other.
Their voices
Are like the wind,
Blowing from one word
To another.
Telling about their deeply secret world
In which the other is a stranger.
Each of them the street map
To their lives and secret longings,
To their griefs and their rejoicings
To the inner places they have lived in.
Making small improvements, of course,
To their own ‘places of interest’
As they went.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
HOME TIME
Night falls
And we are a long way
From home.
The silent fields,
Lying flat against the moon,
Placing shadows where shadows
Should be.
No hard corners.
Quaking grass shivering
As a small wind passes through.
Wild roses and yellow honeysuckle
Scenting the air.
And the whole of it so loved,
We begin to think we belong here.
To think we have a home here.
When, really, we know
We have no permanent home anywhere.
None that we have ever recognised
Anyway.
At least, none with a familiar structure.
©2020 Gwen Grant
Poems by Gwen Grant 