LEMON SHERBET

My Dad’s boots were big and heavy,
Black bright with coal dust,
Clogged up on the leather laces,
Solid in the cleats of the soles
He walked on.

‘Threepence,’ he said, ‘to anyone
Who will clean them.’
There were no takers.

Until I got to thinking
About a crinkly paper bag
Full of lemon sherbets,
Fizzing on my tongue.

©2020 Gwen Grant

HIDE AND SEEK

Playing Hide-and-seek,
Was ferocious, scary fun.

Adding vast dimensions
To where they played
Or which side they were on.

Hiding took them to fearful places,
Leaving them lost and forlorn.

Seeking forced them frightened on
To hidey-holes and hidden places
Much better left alone.

So they were glad
When they could leave
Hide-and-Seek behind.

Yet here they are,
Much older now,
Trying to find
Their own lost selves,
Soul and heart and mind.

©2022 Gwen Grant

Thinking about all the places we’ve lived over the
years, I also remembered, given the circumstances,
just how easy it is to find yourself without a home.
The poet, Robert Frost, said that home was where they
had to take you in, words that stayed with me.

ALL TOGETHER, NOW!

If only I could sing that song again,
The old girl said to her reflection.
You know, the one about having
A safe place to live in.
Though, obviously, that’s not happening

Still, opening her mouth,
She tried a few notes.
Doh and Ray, anyway.
Admittedly, with a bit of a quaver,
Until, settling in,
She sang about home.

Home!

That place where the poet said
They had to take you in.
‘Not in my experience,’ the old girl sighed,
Then fell silent, considering.
At last, pushing aside
All her quavering and quivering,
Went on with her gravelly old singing,
Really getting into her stride.

Fearlessly singing the Blues on her lonesome,
Until, hustling up to the chorus,
She flung her arms wide.
All together, now!’ she cried,

And a thousand, thousand voices sang,
‘If only we had a home to be home in.’

©2017 Gwen Grant

 

THE SINGING TREE

The singing tree
Stands at the end
Of a long old garden,
Its airy beauty
Cherished by the wind.
Leaf and branch
The chosen hiding place
Of the sun.

Snow and ice,
Hard times and long drought
Fall upon it.
Shaking them away,
Persevering always
In its Being.

This is the tree
The angel visited
That long ago morning,
Wide face smiling
Among the leaves,
Letting the little shadows
Offer their shelter.

The singing tree
Sings of the quiet strength
Of wild places,
Of the certainty that hope
Can balance a mountain
On the tip of a finger.

              ©2022 Gwen Grant

         A SLOW SHINE OF CELANDINE

It was on a day that held winter tightly to its bones,
When the whole world was frozen over,
That thin sunshine shone through that bony wood,
Lighting the little trembling ferns
Trembling in the bitter wind,
Gilding the sheath of the bony Birch
Until it shone like silver,
A light to glint and gleam in the new-lit darkness,
To remind us that through the dark times,
In older bones and in the bones of fragile children,
Love has always shone and gleamed and glinted.
Always bringing light to a dark world,
Always bringing love to overcome unimaginably dark forces.

In the dead leaves, in the dark moss,
In the narrow twisted roots of bony trees,
In the slow shine of tiny, tiny celandines all golden and tender,
Beaming beneath the darker and darker leaves,
Their golden heads lifting to the sun,
In the small green buds hidden in their papery sheaths,
Their slow explosions seeking eager life.
Into all this, the ringing of the shuttered bluebells
Send their silent, startling promise that love’s new life
Will always shine into the bony darkness,
Will always defeat it with its full and living sweetness.
                                             ©2018 Gwen Grant