BLUE TIME IN SPRING TIME

I’ve been in hospital so my blog has been neglected.  I’m home now and this is where I would like to visit again, even though we’re a bit later than Spring.

 

         BLUE TIME IN SPRING TIME 

Walking over them, I half expected to fall
Into the great blue gaiety of a perfect sunny sky,
For the small blue flowers, no bigger than a grain of corn,
Were blue stars under my feet, their eternal beauty
Starring this world through the tender hand of love. 

There is a deep tenderness in this wood, a deep love,
For here the purple flower, there, the red.
Now a creamy bank of butter yellow blossom gleaming in the shadows,
Delighting, enchanting, lifting up to their own joyful gaiety
All those who walk under the dappling leaves.
The trees themselves swaying with delighted laughter
At this sunny celebration. 

Beyond the blue flowers,
Beyond the pale grey stone and faded tags of leafy gold,
A fish leaps up through the sunlit water,
Glittering blue against the brown washed banks of the lake
drying in the morning sun,
And a swan glides by in slow, grave beauty. 

Down this path the dandelion, that shock headed golden explosion,
Almost touches the red petals of a heavy blossomed tree,
A tiny goldfinch darting amongst them.
In the distance, a flash of blue as a jay flies to a far horizon,
Whilst a rich darkness shows up the blue black crow.
The squirrel pauses on its tiny orange feet
And the drake flies low, a dash of iridescent blue.
Then the blowing leaves whirl their tiny shadows under the trees
And the blue wash of bluebells turns the forest floor into a dark blue sea. 

And in a thousand, thousand places,
In the bramble and in the thorn,
In the dark silhouette of twigs lying flush against the blue sky,
In the fallen flowers lying on the grass,
In the purple and the red and the water floating blue.
The blue bells ring this steady proof of love. 

                                                       ©GWEN GRANT

MY LIBRARY HOME

One of my earliest memories is of going to the Library.  The Librarians then were very strict and wouldn’t allow you in until they had checked that your hands were clean.  I didn’t care.  I just wanted to get in amongst those books and read and read and read.  This Library has now closed and a new one built in its place.  The new one is fine but it doesn’t smell of floor polish, or lines of wooden shelves and, most importantly, it doesn’t smell of books. 

Every library I’ve ever visited is clear in my memory but I especially remember the New York Library; a) because it was so beautiful, it took my breath away and b) because, in the book sale there, I bought two volumes which have taken their place on my shelves of best-loved books.

One book was ‘Letters of Arnold Bennett – Volume 2 – 1889-1915’ and the other was ‘Letters of Arnold Bennett – Volume 3 – 1916-1931.’  Bennett was a writer I really admired and still do.

I also love the stamped inscription on the bottom of the books. ‘The New York Public Library – The Branch Libraries,’ and inside, ‘Withdrawn, for free use in City Cultural and Welfare Institutions.  May be sold for the benefit of the New York Public Library only.’  Long live New York Public Library.

Then there was the one in the city of Dundee, Scotland.  A very small Public Library that was so modest, it hardly took up any room at all but with the same magic inside.  That Library has gone, as well, but I still walk into it in my mind. 

 Libraries always seemed to require that you filled in forms and produced a copy of your Birth Certificate before they’d let you have a book.  I’d have supplied them with my blood group, shoe size and almost anything else just to get inside and pick up a book, a book, a book, a book.

 

                                                MY LIBRARY HOME 

When they tell me to ‘Attach Birth Certificate here,’
I ask them which one they mean.
The first one that simply affirms I have been born,
Or the real one, where under ‘Place of Birth,’
I have written ‘Library.’

For it was amongst these book-lined shelves
I was born to an awareness and understanding
Of what men and women, girls and boys get up to,
Plus all those other things we’re told that flesh is heir to.
I took down those books, held them, read them
And loved them so much, I hugged them.

I read about everything.
Love and hate, life and death, war and peace,
Joy and sorrow, crime and punishment.
I read about mountains, valleys, deserts, cities and jungles,
And how man was just a pinprick of light
In a vast darkness.
Or, maybe, a pinprick of darkness
In an ocean of light.

I learnt about creatures that walk, talk, crawl, creep, swim and fly
And how a sudden, surprising spark of affection
Can be a connection between them and us,
Us and them.

Which was why, under ‘Nationality’ where it said,
‘Tick any one of the countries that follow from A to Z,’
I ticked them all instead.
For I am every colour and race, creed, dogma and faith.
Is that hard?
Not when you’ve got a Library card.

So that’s my real home, for me and generations before me,
For together we speak for all those yet to come,
Who need us to succour them, love them, encourage them,
build them and fill them, and shine ‘em up,
As they find their place in their Library home. 

                                                ©2017 GWEN GRANT

BUT THERE’S HOPE…….

 

BUT THERE’S HOPE…….

We thought that we were stronger far
Than Old Man Time.
That hand-in-hand we could out-dance
The Lady of the Hours.
That every moment was forever
At our beck and call,
And we would be always young and lovely
As the Spring-time flowers.

We half understood when this one
Turned their face unto the wall,
When that one couldn’t get
A second breath.
But we were slow to understand
That Time is iron,
In its iron will to bring about
Our iron deaths.

Yet when all is said and done and told,
We ever understood that love turned
Iron into gold.

                               © 2017 Gwen Grant

LITTLE GIRLS LYING IN THE SNOW AND ICY AIR

  LITTLE GIRLS LYING IN THE SNOW AND ICY AIR

In that hour of the afternoon,
Quiet and bare, the leaves having long since fallen,
The woods set firm, thick and heavy,
Sending shape and shadow creeping towards us,
My friend lay in the bunk next to mine
And I watched her.

Watched the bunk slowly topple over,
Saw her black hair suddenly veiled with blossom,
A slow and icy blossom of snow,
Touching her closed eyes, restless and flickering
Under their thin brown skin covering.

I could not breathe for fear but fell beside her,
Lying there, watching her, anxiously whispering.
I could not move until they picked her up,

Gathering her to them like a fallen flower,
A crumpled petal.  Carrying her away.

Now the wicked woods shook with laughter,
Bare branches creaking with loss,
And loneliness, that greedy companion.

Snow falling quietly on all the little girls
Lying in the snow and icy air.

                                             © Gwen Grant   

TULIPS

                TULIPS

These Tulips are a dazzle
Of tethered sunshine,
Silky lemon petals trembling
In the slow moving air.

Courteous flowers,
Bowing to each other,
Bending low to the waiting room
Their stems gently curving,
Lifting the green and lovely leaves
That we might see
The fabulous hidden life
Waiting for us all.

                                       © 2019 Gwen Grant