THE FALL OF ICARUS
Icarus must have fallen into our garden last night.
He must have landed with a thump,
Knocking all the feathers off his wings
Because the grass shone
With soft cream clover,
The startling embroidered white of daisies
And in the small brown pots
That were empty at dusk,
Grew tiny iceberg roses.
Pale and pretty as moonshine.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
QUIET SPACE
The space between words
Is a place of great comfort,
Where the mind can rest
And the eye assess
What is to come.
To prepare for the future.
So it is with prayer.
For prayer is the space
Between being and doing.
A place of great quietness
Where the heart can find ease,
Mind and soul
Find new strength
To face whatever lies in front of us.
©2019 Gwen Grant
FIERCE WIND AND STORM
Fog on the fields this morning,
So dense, I could only see
Shapes and shadows
Heading towards me.
Only hear the lovely papery rattle
Of dry leaves
Hanging on a bit longer,
Before the wind
Blows them and the fog
Into oblivion.
Standing at the fence, listening
To the cat’s tiny lappings
Of icy rainwater,
I feel the wind’s new strength,
Triumphant after its cleansing
Of field and hedgerow,
Pulling me and pushing,
Pushing me and shoving,
Until it almost bowls me over.
But I hold on,
With fingers strong and fierce
As wood, new leaf and berry.
For I have a lot to do
Before I allow any storm to blow me
Into oblivion.
©2022 Gwen Grant
LOVERS
Either he came along too late,
Or she was born too soon.
Whichever it was,
Those years they had lost
Were wild and wide and gone,
So they had a lot to catch up on.
On both sides,
There were exciting times to talk through.
For each of them,
Desperate days to walk through.
Still, there was plenty to talk about,
Plenty to discover about each other,
Lover to Lover.
So now, all was well and all was well,
For the living was just beginning.
The two of them, together,
Putting time in its place,
Slipping all those lost hours
Into their pockets,
To be remembered only when they felt
Strong enough to face them.
But not now, they decided, not now
And maybe not ever,
Not when the days were shining,
The nights blazing and burning
With no charred mornings to speak of.
Not when a plain old blade of grass
Spoke of heaven,
The heaven that lay in each other
Now time and love were with them,
New Lover loves New Lover.
Old lovers sent to the car wash.
© 2018 Gwen Grant
HOPE RISING
The silent night
Echoes only
To the sound of wings
Slapping against water.
The frozen air
Crackles
As pearly birds fly
Into the rising sun.
Hope flexes
Its own wings
As it sets out
Into the world.
©2020 Gwen Grant
Poems by Gwen Grant 