IT WASN’T THE HAPPIEST TIME

Walking out,
It was that kind of miserable,
Sulking winter,
With bitter stars
Barely bothering
To hunch their shoulders,
Or tuck themselves into the greyness,
Pulling clouds over their heads,
Thinking good riddance
To the sorry world below them.

Until, as if joyfully
Adding insult to injury,
A skim of sleet
Left the hand of misery,
Whitened the freezing leaves
Of the hedgerows,
Soaking the knitted cuffs
Of my bright red jumper.

    Nature’s fierce laughter
    Sending me home frozen.

             ©2022 Gwen Grant.

MARCH MORNING

Sunshine
Threading through the garden,
Touching the first daisies,
Shining on the magpies,
Turning the water
In the old zinc bowl
Into shards
Of brilliant light.

Staying just out of reach
Of the cat’s lazy paw,
Until it pounces.

Catching the sun
In its sharp white claws.

The garden breathes out.

©2022 Gwen Grant

FOG IN THE MORNING

More fog.
In the paddock,
Sheep, like ghosts,
Drifting up and down
The grass.

This could be yesterday
When we were all young
Together.

The early bus pulling up
At the Pit.
The sound of boots
On the half-hidden
Pavement,
In time for the early shift.

The rest of us asleep
Until the fog clears.
The sheep
Shaking it off their backs.

The lights of the Pit
Floating it
Clean away.

        © 2020 Gwen Grant

  FROM BEING SMALL…..

We know that if the years have taught
us one thing.
It is this.
That unless there is love,
The words of the weak
Will be written in tears
On the windows of the world.

                                  © 2019 Gwen Grant

National flower of Ukraine

REMEMBER US

War is different now.
In the old days
Men wept and suffered and died alone.
Now, reels of film,
The pop and flash of the camera,
The digital image
Bring all suffering before us.

Here’s one,
With a loaded gun.
And there’s another.
The gun brings all to death
And death makes all women sisters
All men brothers.

And here,
Some precious daughter,
Some precious son
Lie silent and unknown.

Man has always fought
And Love has always loved
And man’s love has so tight a boundary.
Here’s the pity of it,
That we should line the boned earth
With the young.

War is different now
But it makes no difference to us.
We are the wounded.
We are the dead.

It makes no difference
Whether we send giant tanks down small streets
Or over flowers.
Or send soldiers.
Or whether death is dart flung
Out of a screaming sky.
We still die.

REMEMBER US.

As you watch us,
Caught for all time,
To suffer for all time,
To die for all time.
Remember us.

We were the men sprinting over sand
We were the women beside them,
The flash, flash, flash of bullets
Turning the fallen
Into sandcastles
Blown away by the wind.

Once, we were the future.
We were our sons and daughters,
Our futures wasted in the fist of death
Our red blood runs black,
Or blazing red.

Though every impulse of your heart
Reaches out,
You cannot touch us.
You cannot help us.
For men have always fought,
And Love has always loved,
And man’s love has so tight a boundary.
And yet!
And yet!
If we could love our neighbour
And get that right,
Old wars would never be repeated,
And through love, by love, in love
War itself would be defeated.

                              ©2012 Gwen Grant.

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