Month: August 2024

LITTLE BROWN HENS AND RED

 Where we lived when I was a girl, most of the gardens
around us were like my Dad’s. Full of vegetables, fruit,
flowers and hens. They were beautiful gardens and I
remember our garden with great fondness.

This poem has already been published but I’ve been thinking
about my family quite a lot lately, especially my Dad, so here is
a poem I wrote about him and his garden.  I only have to
picture the garden in my head and it’s there, always in sunshine and
with the hens darting about, hiding wherever they can.   Gardens 
are priceless for what they bring to us.

LITTLE BROWN HENS AND RED

My father’s garden was full of little brown hens
High stepping, tippy tapping in and out of the daffodils,
Pecking at the Spring mint, settling in the potato patch,
Always protesting, always complaining.
Not enough of this.  Too little of that.
The wicked tortoiseshell cat pinning them down
With eyes greener than the very grass they trod on.

They would crowd around the kitchen door,
Indignant little bodies demanding hen justice.
But they liked their bit of my father’s garden
With worms trying to live quietly beneath them.

Until my cousin came with his hard hands,
Hungry eyes and a heart intent on killing,
Then I went out shouting,
Scattering the little brown hens and the red,
Causing the dark cockerel
To turn his bitter, livid eye on my hateful presence.

Squawking, they fled, hiding under the hen coop.
Darting into the rhubarb leaves at the back of the tree.
But when my cousin kept coming, when his boots broke
The sunny daffodils, I pushed him so hard, he fell over,
I didn’t care about him.

For my little red hens and brown,
The arrogant cockerel with his angry eyes
All lived to tuck themselves up again
And sleep their tiny pulsing sleep.

To wake in the morning,
Ready for another really interesting day. 

                                          ©2020 Gwen Grant                        

ALL THE BLUE IN THE WORLD

At our front doorstep, we have a tiny flower, much smaller than the
other flowers around it, and yet it is so blue, its blueness shines out
and turns all the other lovely flowers into handmaidens. This flower
is called LITHODORA.

ALL THE BLUE IN THE WORLD

This tiny flower,
Smaller than a baby’s smallest finger,
is so blue,
The wonder is that any blueness
is left in the world,
Drenched and drowned in colour
as this little flower is.

There is passion here,
A deep, unfailing tenderness
In its tiny petalled perfection.
Nothing has been held back,
No scintilla of grace denied
To this small and lovely blossom.

This scrap of beauty,
Its clear blue flame
Shining down the damp and grassy darkness,
Lights the dark path in front of us,
Giving a sudden, startling glimpse
Of a blazing, generous love.

                                     © 2013 GWEN GRANT

THE PROPHET AT MY ELBOW

Stuck at home on a beautiful day, sun shining, breeze blowing, I yearn
to be out – out – out- after a week of enforced staying-in! So here’s
a poem I wrote years ago which takes me right back to that lovely
place.
We have a national park close to us which is a thing of beauty and
which contains such loveliness, you have to make yourself go home. 
The park is on old ground and standing on it, there is that eternal
feeling of all that has gone before and all that will come in the future. 
This park seems to include the sky as part of its sheer loveliness.   

 THE PROPHET AT MY ELBOW

Early Winter, and the geese are sailing
In a long straight line down the river,
Not knowing where they are going
But going, anyway,
Turning at the curve then coming back.
By their side, the wind is puffing up
Little drops of sunny water.

And as if the prophet was standing by me,
I became aware of the immense blue vault of the heavens.
Through the light of day, saw the hidden night,
With one star blazing brighter than all the others.

My feet were firm on solid ground,
Yet beneath them, I saw mountains biding their time,
Deserts flowering, and lights of cities not yet built all shining,
And the prophet, standing at my elbow, whispered,
‘Here is loveliness beyond all telling.’

Mid-winter, and the geese are sailing
In a long straight line down the river.
Their angry little eyes a snapping song of reluctant praise
To the love that made them.
And the prophet, standing at my elbow, whispered
Of the steadfast love and hope that lives in all creation.

                                                       © 2018 Gwen Grant