Category: Faith Poetry

 BITTER FROST TO SUNSHINE

 BITTER FROST TO SUNSHINE

All these years, we have lived
With lies as light as thistledown
In our minds.
Memories of those times
We broke with love
Bringing a sad remembrance.
Turning sunshine to frost
In an instant.

These are the memories
We want to polish up.
The ones that make us sad,
Uncomfortable, uneasy.
Make them more forgiving,
Sweeter, perhaps,
As if they had never happened
In the way we remember.

But we know enough to understand
No good ever came
Of turning memories into lies,
No matter how much
We may want to lie or be lied to.

In that dark time, then,
When we can no longer find
Forgiveness in ourselves,
When thistledown lies
Weigh heavy upon us,
Offer them up.

Offer up those memories,
Just as they are.
Offer up those times
We have not loved.
Offer them all up,
Trusting and safe in our trust
That Love itself
Will take each sorry heart,
Turn bitter frost to sunshine.

                                   © 2016 Gwen Grant

All material on this blog is copyright but if anyone wants to use part of it,
then please get in touch.   http://www.gwengrant.co.uk

WAITING FOR SUNRISE 

        WAITING FOR SUNRISE 

There they are,
Sheaves of hay lying in the fields
Like golden Lovers,
Waiting for sunrise,
Waiting for the sun’s warmth
To cradle their tired heads.
Make soft shadows of eyelashes
Lying quiet against their faces. 

Don’t wake them,
Let them rest.
For over the thorn hedge
In the next field waiting,
Winter rests on its elbow,
Frosty fingers all set
To kill summer stone dead. 

Here comes the sun.
Time enough now to shake their shoulders
Before the frost gets close enough to touch them.  

Hold hands, Lovers. 
Hold hands and run.
                                                    © 2019 Gwen Grant

NIGHT HOURS

  NIGHT HOURS

Closing on midnight,
With the great starry fields
Lying still and quiet in front of me,
Moonlight falling like water
On the silent trees, the dark furrows,
The creaking ice puddles shining,
Holding stars in their frozen silver,
I see the first ghosts
Of those I have known
Drift across the white horizon,
Mist folding them into sparkling shadows
Slipping through my fingers
When I reach out to touch them,
Take them home.

They don’t go far but wait for me,
Blowing the years in front of them,
Opening this corner and that
To let me see again,
All those I have loved.
All those I love still.

Until the snow finally hides them
And I turn for home,
The trees shivering in sympathy,
Anointing my lonely head
With cold tears of their own.

                          ©2020 Gwen Grant

A SHORT HISTORY OF A COMPLEX LIFE

 A SHORT HISTORY OF A COMPLEX LIFE

The woman who ate the moon
Lives in the trees down by the river.

Wait!  I tell a lie!

She actually lives on some small landing
Up a flight of stairs halfway to heaven,
Or resides at the bottom of a cellar temporarily,
Standing on dark, unseen tiles,
Cold, mysterious and unsettling.
Looking fantastically familiar
Should you ever catch a glimpse of her.

She has a habit of singing through the dark hours.

Sometimes of how she is made of paper
Inclined, at times, to burst into flame.

Her mind is full of brushed glass pieces
Picked up on the beach, blown lovely
By the steady rushing of the wind-blown sea,
With pebbles, sea-shells, starfish, mermaids
And the bones of the dead rattling amongst them.

After she swallowed the moon, she held it tight within,
Complaining, sometimes, that light shone right through her
And only dragons, biting and marauding, could save her,
Lending her their teeth.

At night, the sky is alive with heroes,
Blazing shields held up and ready to meet the morning.
Great wings of strength and beauty beating behind them
As they go seeking the woman who ate the moon.

But she would only let in
Those who left their shields and wings at home
As she was extremely busy making her own history.

                                                             © 2020 Gwen Grant

LINCOLN ROSES

Lincoln Cathedral was D.H. Lawrence’s favourite
cathedral. Mine, too. Even standing in the doorway and
looking down the long grey reaches into the Cathedral
proper, you know instantly that this glorious building,
this hymn of praise to Love, is going to capture your |
heart, not just for now but for ever. Not so easy to get
to anymore but closing the eyes will do it.

          LINCOLN ROSES

That day in Lincoln Cathedral,
The scent of roses in the air so strong,
I thought there must be some pretty dame
With high heels and posh perfume around.
But there was no-one,
Only me and Love and the great circular window
Full of coloured glass, glinting down at us. 

It was all so stern, so forbidding,
So unbending with the grey stone,
The slabs of walls and hard stone benches,
The weary pavements where thousand year old
Shadows of monks still lapped
Remorselessly up and down. 

This house is grey, great slabs of greyness,
With great roofs pressing down
Even as they soared into emptiness,
Undercutting the power structure of witless men
Determined to impress Love,
Maybe, with a small nudge to eternity,
Secure a place on that heavenly panel. 

Here some warning hand has put an Imp,
But no number of Imps or poker-faced priests,
Or high-hatted, rich robed fleshy monuments to the past
Can distract us from the petal of a fallen flower
Lying scarlet on the stone cold floor,
Pulsing with a life far beyond us.  

Love steadies the candle flames
Of small lanterns shining through the hazy darkness
Of a great Cathedral.
Illuminating that which cannot be seen,
Giving glory to that which cannot be touched,
The unspoken harmony of prayer
Enfolding us and Love. 

                                               © 2019/2025 GWEN GRANT

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