FALLING STARS

When I was a girl, I was sent away to Kent, to a kind of hospital
school to make me better.  I was only there a year yet that year has given
me memories for a lifetime, good and bad.  The Kentish woods helped me
settle because they formed a link to my much loved woods of home. 

    FALLING STARS

I walked the spine of morning
Whilst the birds slept.
Their little feathered bodies
Absorbing the melody of leaves,
The quiet breathing of grass,
Waking to the delicate sounds of light changing,
Their tiny anthems gathering strength
Enough to fill the woods with song.
Drowning these cool Kentish pathways
With joy and praise.

Where, last night, a falling star
Tumbled through the trembling leaves
Shoring up this world’s quiet beauty.

I saw it fall.
The little wren and the robin at my shoulder,
The nightingale singing into the morning light.
Our eyes clinging to the long radiance
Of Jupiter and Mars shining briefly
Onto that star ridden path.

Setting that quiet Kentish wood ablaze
With the glory of falling stars,
Of little birds singing.

                                 © 2020 Gwen Grant

PRIVATE KEEP OUT!  by Gwen Grant
published by Penguin Vintage  Children’s Classics
available in paperback and as ebook