HOPSCOTCH

hop scotchWe played a lot of outside games as children and
one of our favourites was hopscotch.  In hopscotch
there had to be drawn with chalk on the pavements, ten
squares but squares that began with a single square,
then a double square, then two single squares,
a double, a single and a final double, all numbered one
to ten.

We all had our hopscotch stones, which we guarded with our lives. 
These were ordinary stones polished until they shone
and so, sped smoothly to the square we needed as if
they were on wheels.  But you had to judge how much impetus to
give to the stone and that was the secret!

When you’d worked that out, you had to hop to that square and
pick up your stone whilst still standing on one leg.  The first
one to triumphantly hit 9 and 10 and was able to hop to it without
putting a foot down through nerves or because you were being
heckled, exactly to that end, well, that was the one who won the
game.

There was another game we used to play – high-kelly, which
was doing a handstand against a wall.  You kept your head
up and stared at the red bricks until they were burnt onto your
eyes.  To do a high-kelly in the days when jeans were not an
option, meant tucking your skirt into the elasticated hems of
your knickers so that you were always ‘decent’!   As always,
with every endeavour, there was one little rebel who preferred
her skirt
to hang down over head. Sometimes, you were the rebel,
sometimes it was someone else. But there was always room for
everyone – rebels and peace-makers both.

              HOPSCOTCH

Hopscotch isn’t a game,
It’s a science,
A mathematical challenge,
An exercise into just how far
Your stone will slide
Over those ten squares
Stretching into infinity.
Most important of all
Is the application of logic,
To determine if this
Is an exercise in futility
Or if you have at last learnt to hop,
And stand on one leg. 

                      ©2017 GWEN GRANT

GOOD FRIDAY

street at night

Good Friday reminds me so much of when I was a girl.  It was the start of  a busy
weekend of chapel going!  My family were members of a Methodist chapel.  It
was years before I learnt it was Primitive Methodist but whatever it went by, in
my memory it was full of singing and general happiness.  The Chapel has been
pulled down and my parents have gone but they have left behind lovely memories.
Reading the Bible so comprehensively as a child played a large part in
becoming a writer when I grew up.  Stories full of incident and colour and
characters swept through my life.  When I was sent 300 miles away to an Open
 air hospital school  for a year when I was 10, I found myself attending a Church
of England  Sunday school.  It didn’t matter because I met all my old biblical pals there
and on we went together!

GOOD FRIDAY 

So now it begins with the sun striking through the tall windows,
Onto the old brown pews and onto the pulpit,
Onto the slender Cross where the weight of this weeping world
Is carried on helpless shoulders,
Onto the crown of thorns blazing in the shadows,
Burning the darkness with its crimson glory. 

This is not a gentle day, yet gentleness persists in breaking through,
For the soaring arc of the wide blue banner
Painted on the far wall of the Chapel,
Painted high above the polished table where blue scented grasses
Quiver in a silver goblet, unquestioning and faithful,
Presents to us those golden words painted on that lovely blue arc,
Words that insist ‘GOD IS LOVE’
Which gently insist it is this we must always remember. 

The singing is bright now, pausing, darkening, lifting, soaring,
Until a sudden startling descant adds its own touch of glory
To all tough and tender hearts caught in a flesh
Ever subject to death and to corruption, yet ever open to joy.
These singers of sacred songs seek the strength of God as they sing
And in those three plain words, GOD IS LOVE, find it. 

Then the crisp cold air smelling faintly of lavender
Drifts like a prayer into the silence and the silence is profound
As silence always is when God is listening.
And God is always listening.
And love is always sending its quiet hope out into the world. 

                                                                    © 2018 GWEN GRANT.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

UNESCO WORLD POETRY DAY

 

heather

Today is UNESCO WORLD POETRY DAY so here is my poem. It has been up before
but you can never have too many poems!

I just got so exasperated with the poem I was planning to write.  I could see
it in my mind’s eye. I could even hear it but I just could not write it. We
were planning a trip to Scotland at the time and I thought maybe that
was where my poem had gone, on the train before ours.  So the poem
that got away was probably perfect! Leaving me with this one.

    THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

The last time I saw that poem
It was getting on a train
For the far north.
It likes it up there,
Crunching about in the ice and snow,
Climbing up small mountains,
Picking up the odd abandoned word
Or lovely phrase
Lying amongst the grey stones and heather.

By nightfall, it’ll be in its room, changing,
Emptying its pockets onto the bed,
Choosing a word to sparkle here,
A phrase to quietly glow there,
Getting set for a night of changing partners.
Until all scrubbed up, brushed down
And wildly excited,
It’s finally ready to dance.

Any time now,
I expect that poem to come home.

                                             © 2019 Gwen Grant

MR ESPALIER

This poem came to be written because I’d been thinking about a
music teacher we had at school.  He was a very diffident man who
had to try and teach some elements of music to a crowd of children
for whom, by and large, music was a closed book.  He stuck in my
mind because I liked him and liked what he was endeavouring to
do.  Of course, a couple of years later came rock and roll, the
w
hole world of music opened up to us and then we were all
music,
music, music!

       MR ESPALIER

Mr. Espalier, our music teacher,
Took himself very seriously,
So we had to take him seriously, too.
He would sit at the piano, strike a key,
Muse, ‘Top C’, do you see?’
Then launch into a melody so beyond us,
Only every now and again would a phrase catch our attention,
Stopping the tapping of pencils on teeth,
Lulling us into a silence that made us stop and listen.

But Mr. Espalier was full of surprises,
One day swinging into music that followed us home,
Curling all around the council houses,
Weaving in and out of the pink ‘Peace’ roses
Flowering in almost every garden,
Dogging our heels, scaring the unwary,
Banging on front doors and demanding entry.

We flung the doors wide enough, of course,
For every note to march straight in.
Until, like Mr. Espalier, this friendly, beaming stranger,
Demanded our full concentration before it would begin,
Almost carelessly, to give us its family name.

It was Dave Brubeck and Fats Waller,
Moody blues man, Muddy Waters.
Chopin and his mazurkas,
Ravel and Woody Guthrie.
Honky-tonk, rock’n’roll and Gospel Mahalia.
Sibelius, with the drowning beauty of his ‘Finlandia.’
‘Ophelia!  Oh, Ophelia!’
Silky Peggy Lee and lovely ice-cool Ella.
Stravinsky in the Spring and Arnold Schoenberg
Whose every chord sent a flurry
Of exclamation marks flying through the air,
Filling every child there full of astounded questions.
Then, ‘Stand to attention, you lot at the back,’
For here comes Elgar,
As this glorious new family member
Claimed our hearts once for always and for ever.

It was probably then that Mr. Espalier’s class
Of soul-hungry children,
Whose family name had always been, ‘Rejection,’
Decided to grow roses when we got older
To honour him.
                                         ©2012 G
wen Grant

TEN MINUTES TO ANY TIME

TEN MINUTES TO ANY TIME

The last time anyone heard a nightingale sing,
It was in the middle of the big field
At about ten minutes to midnight.
It was bitter freezing cold,
Pinching and snipping and biting
Any bare bit of skin it could find,
Turning every nose into a raw soreness
Until it was painful to be out there.

The frost was thick on the ground,
Still drifting down when they heard the singing,
So clear and beautiful it sounded like the voice of God.

Which was when someone said,
That’s not a nightingale, that’s the little stream
Sending its clear water over tiny stones.’
Forgetting the frozen river.

Then someone else said,
That’s not a singer of songs, that’s two owls
Calling to each other.’
But no-one thought so.

Finally, someone suggested it was a fox
Keening for another fox to keep it company.

The truth is, it didn’t matter who was the singer.
For those who want to, at ten minutes to any time,
They can hear a nightingale singing.

 ©2024 Gwen Grant.