I have always dreamt and some of  my dreams strike 
into my heart with the very first pictures which show me
where I am because from here, I know exactly what is
going to happen.  Is that a bus stop with a bus rolling by,
ignoring the outstretched hand of a person wanting to get on? 
Why yes it is!  And that person is me.  This is the start of
 a dream that always frightens me because I have to walk
home in deep darkness and untold terrors fall upon me on
that journey.

SILENT MOVIES

Little children
Lying quietly in their beds,
Dreaming.
Flushed faces,
Closed eyes
Flickering like old silent movies,

Shadows
Of hidden worlds,
Of unknown people
Demanding attention.

All we can do, watching,
Is hope that all is well
In these places we cannot enter.
That each child will be safe
Until they awaken.

That every traveller
On the high plains
Of hesitant fear and aloneness
Will find the keys
Of this unknown kingdom
And retreating,
Lock the doors tight
Behind them.

Dropping the keys
Into deep water.

©2024 Gwen Grant

 I wrote this poem many years ago and sold it to a national magazine. However,
I didn’t know when it was being published but, one day, at a Railway station, at
the start of a long journey, I bought  a copy of this magazine, opened it, and there
was the poem! I spent the whole of that journey reading the print off the page.

      I KNOW YOUR FACE

I know your face as I know my own,
And yet, one odd glance
Surprised your outside face looking in
At me.
Odd.  I thought I knew you well,
Yet there you were.  A stranger.

So many years have gone by since we met
And loved by firelight.
I remember asking what you were thinking
about,
And listening.
Since then, it can’t be that I haven’t listened.
Just never asked again. 

                                              © 2018 Gwen Grant

Longing to go away and hating to walk past the
railway station instead of going in and booking a seat
on a train – any train to almost anywhere – I thought of
the time I was on the train in this poem. It was a sunny morning and
great fingers of sunshine swept the old dark shadows of
the station away. Stations and trains and total devotion.

THE OLD STATION WALL

That great black wall
Towering over the train
Standing at the station,

Grows little green ferns
In the cracks between bricks,

Sends tiny yellow flowers
Bursting out of the old tar and dust,
So full of life and hope,

Their tiny petals tickle
The darkness with sunshine.

©2021 Gwen Grant

We go to the north of Scotland for our holidays and particularly do we like the
sea coast .  On one visit, we were lucky enough to be there when a storm blew up.
It was  so awe inspiring, the power of the sea and the elements.  I didn’t feel quite so
lucky when we came out of shelter and made a run for it to quieter places.  You think
of the same power pushing a flower through rock hard earth but we can’t see that.
As I’m writing this, the moon is shining from a dark blue sky lighting up the world.

  DANGEROUS HARBOUR

As we stand here,
On the edge of the world,
The wet streets peeling away
From the tiny harbour,
The sea, in a fit of spite,
Swirls and tumbles
Onto the stony shingle,
Rattling the shells
From one bony ridge to another,
Hissing its peevish laughter
At the moonbeams dancing uneasily
Down this stretch of wild water.

Until, in a fury of authority,
The moon calls all to order.
Combing the white frilled water
Into its thin silver fingers,
Braiding light into the aching darkness,
Its own face darkening as it considers
The water’s bold and fierce behaviour.

Now look what’s happened!
The moon has turned her back
On the tiny, frozen harbour,
Battered by the shell hung water,
Smashing foam flowers
Onto the old stone causeway,
Onto our icy, hasty shoulders,
As we run helter-skelter for safety
To a deep and far away doorway.

Now the sly and sliding waters
Try to tumble us off our frozen feet,
Try and pull us into the rolling sea
To be another bony shell in the making.

                                   © 2018 Gwen Grant