Where we lived when I was a girl, most of the gardens
around us were like my Dad’s. Full of vegetables, fruit,
flowers and hens. They were beautiful gardens and I
remember our garden with great fondness.

This poem has already been published but I’ve been thinking
about my family quite a lot lately, especially my Dad, so here is
a poem I wrote about him and his garden.  I only have to
picture the garden in my head and it’s there, always in sunshine and
with the hens darting about, hiding wherever they can.   Gardens 
are priceless for what they bring to us.

LITTLE BROWN HENS AND RED

My father’s garden was full of little brown hens
High stepping, tippy tapping in and out of the daffodils,
Pecking at the Spring mint, settling in the potato patch,
Always protesting, always complaining.
Not enough of this.  Too little of that.
The wicked tortoiseshell cat pinning them down
With eyes greener than the very grass they trod on.

They would crowd around the kitchen door,
Indignant little bodies demanding hen justice.
But they liked their bit of my father’s garden
With worms trying to live quietly beneath them.

Until my cousin came with his hard hands,
Hungry eyes and a heart intent on killing,
Then I went out shouting,
Scattering the little brown hens and the red,
Causing the dark cockerel
To turn his bitter, livid eye on my hateful presence.

Squawking, they fled, hiding under the hen coop.
Darting into the rhubarb leaves at the back of the tree.
But when my cousin kept coming, when his boots broke
The sunny daffodils, I pushed him so hard, he fell over,
I didn’t care about him.

For my little red hens and brown,
The arrogant cockerel with his angry eyes
All lived to tuck themselves up again
And sleep their tiny pulsing sleep.

To wake in the morning,
Ready for another really interesting day. 

                                          ©2020 Gwen Grant                        

I wrote this poem after taking a workshop with children
who were writing poems and stories about witches,
wizards and things-that-go bump-in-the-night.

I was surprised by how hard line the children’s views
were, not only on the use of magic powers, but
also on what the ordinary people living in tandem
with these often malevolent entities, did in response to
them.

The children were extremely hard line!

STORY TIME

Little children tell stories of things
They know by instinct.
Nothing shocks them.
They know wickedness and knowing it
Both makes and breaks its power.

Little children laugh at those
Who would deny witch and wizard.

In their stories, the poor man who steals the cows
Has good reason to be out in the dark night.
‘The man needs the cow,’ they reason,
‘Because he has no money
And his children will die without milk to feed them.’

Smiling,
They lock the old witch under the stairs.
She won’t see the light of day again.
But they allow her cow to burn the poor man’s fingers
And are glad that her punishing spells
Turn his eyes to mud.

© 2025 GWEN GRANT

   OH, LOVERS

You never should have fallen in love,
Never touched those lips with your trembling mouth
Nor mingled your breath with a breath not your own,
Until, breathless, you were brought down by desire.

Blinded by love,
Your eyes burnt out
By that implacable face staring at you,
Pulling you down
With its deadly understanding
Of your sick passion.
And you, refusing to see it mocked you.

There was always some confection of delight
Waiting to engage you.
Some new trick to disarm and enchant you. 
A decorative something
To hold on to. To plan.  To cling to.
As well put a snowflake on hot iron
For nothing could save you.

Lovers are lost
When one lover no longer loves,
And the other lives on yesterday’s passion.

                                               © 2018 Gwen Grant

THE SOLDIER’S HOME

The soldier’s home!
Filling the house with khaki and brass buttons,
Coming in the dead of night
By the street light,
His boots banging on the roadway
Making the darkness jump.

We heard the mouth organ first,
Dancing its way through closed doors,
Skipping up the stairs
Tapping its melody on the scrubbed wooden floors
Until it was sure we had all woken.

Behind its music trickling into freezing rooms,
Covering the icy beds, making frosty pillows,
He came in, brown as a berry, burnt by foreign suns,
Calling for company and not very welcome.

War breaking out on every bedside,
Pulling covers away from frozen bodies,
Laughing, ‘Wakey! Wakey! Rise and shine.’

‘Give over. Stop it. Go away,’

Until a voice called crossly.
‘That will be quite enough. Stop teasing them
And all of you come down!’

Almost too much to ask
When the bitterly cold linoleum
Snapped off all our toes.

And so we woke into this icy frosted morning
Shouting joyfully into khaki and brass buttons,
Into heavy boots and the much loved face
Of almost a stranger,
Into the music of his mouth organ,

‘The Soldier is home! He is home!’

©2025 Gwen Grant