THE FIRST DAISY
Sunshine,
Threading through the garden,
Touching each blade of grass.
Turning the first daisy
Into a little pulse of light,
Staying just out of reach
Of the cat’s lazy paw.
Until it pounces,
Catching the sun
In its sharp white claws,
Turning it into a net of glory.
©2025 GWEN GRANT
Sat reading this afternoon, a sudden image of my husband’s
Scottish Granny, whom I dearly loved, came between me and the page.
Then memory took me to the quiet and beautiful cemetery in the
highlands where she is buried. We lived a long way from her in those
years and so my husband would ring from the local phone box every
Friday night to talk to her. Such loved memories. Such loved people.
TOMORROW AND TOMORROW
There is no name
Carved in stone
For you.
Your memorial
Is forever written
in the air.
Inscribed
On the folds
Of all the days
Since you left.
One day,
A thousand days,
Makes no difference
To those who loved you.
For those who loved you,
Love you still.
©2021 Gwen Grant..
Not harvest time, no, but the fields and woods and hedgerows are
full of the promise of lovely things here already or yet to come.
Whatever, these glorious harvests have their beginnings here.
HARVEST AND THE SCHOLAR
Now is the time of the dreaming harvest,
When love walks the quiet garden,
Resting under the apple tree and blessing
All the little miracles.
Blessing the black berry, dark as night and beautiful.
Blessing the hips and haws, their tiny tongues of fire,
Startling crimson, burning red in the tight green hedgerows.
Blessing the fat yellow apples, ripe upon the tree,
Yellow as the mid-day sun rising.
The scholar sits in front of love, frayed to the bone with living,
Flayed to the soul with loss and longing,
Lamenting lost harvests when all the years were deserts,
All the days were dust, and the wintered wood of lost hopes trembling,
Made the heart a place where harvest was never going to happen.
Yet love murmured only of love.
Blessing the scholar; blessing this, the fathomless miracle.
Murmuring of tiny joys that once had starred the deserts,
Murmuring of love and small horns of plenty
That once had sprung from the dust of sightless days,
Unseen. Unknown. Forgotten.
‘Remember,’ breathed love. ‘Remember.’
And, remembering, the scholar took from the hand of love
The wintered wood, now bright with fruit and leaf and blossom,
Bright now with hope and love and passion,
Thanks giving for this living harvest safely gathered in.
© 2016 Gwen Grant
PAGAN WEDDING
Everywhere were bluebells
Chiming their soft blue chimes
Into the sunny sweep of dandelions
Burning the hedgerows gold.
We were lost in this paradise
Of quiet roads and shimmering yellow fields,
Until the rough green grass
Of a set-aside meadow, swept with daisies,
Took us into a bright masquerade
Of an older England than any
We had thought to see that day.
Where Lancelot and Guinevere walked again,
Where Arthur’s sword once more pierced the ground,
Where everywhere the eye found
Circlets of flowers resting on willing heads,
And Guinevere flirted
And Lancelot laughed
And coconut shells clapped in the sound
Of the hooves of invisible horses,
Forcing the pagan priest to swing
A bracelet of flowers from his fag brown fingers,
Waiting to join two thistle down merry-makers together,
To live in misery or joy for ever and ever.
And Joker roamed the players on their stage,
Grinning at his eternal role
Of bringing death and wicked trouble
To anyone still alive and kicking,
To anyone unaware of Joker stalking
This blithe and sunny day,
Skin green as a little nut tree
Bearing thorns sharp as daggers and sweet nuts
With hard shells to crack teeth and heads,
Backs and faces, turn bright eyes into pools of sorrow.
©2021 Gwen Grant.
Poems by Gwen Grant 