EPIPHANY
Grey sunflowers, and poets
Sitting in old railway sidings
Alongside huge locomotives,
The clattering and banging
Of wrecked machinery
A perfect backdrop to a new world
In the making.
Kerouac and Ginsberg
Loving the whole, the tiniest bit of it.
Ginsberg breathing in grey sunflowers,
Remembering them for all those coming after.
Imprinting them on the fabric
Of that new world
Waiting just around the corner.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
WAITING
Silent fields, and a bitter night,
And us, trying to keep warm
Under a frozen sky,
The air so cold, a tap
Would shatter it into shards of darkness
To fall around our feet,
And in that star-lit, owl frozen silence,
The hushed dark call carried thinly
Across the still and sleeping fields.
We, so quiet, the red-gold shadow
Of a fox padded by us
All unaware of our waiting,
Its paw pressing the frosted grass
Into dark and hungry prints
Along the path.
Then the silence was broken
By the soft whisper of wind
Drifting snowflakes down the feathered sky,
To quilt the winter ground,
And, somewhere, in that bitter icy world
Someone offered a word of hope
To someone else.
As long as hope is in the world, then,
We, cold and frozen in our waiting,
Can warm ourselves at the fire of love.
© 2018 Gwen Grant
VIOLET TIME
The violets are out again,
Growing alongside the Blackthorn,
The small grass,
The sharp marauding holly.
Forever lighting the darkness,
With their tiny violet glory.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
HERON FLYING HOME
There they all are, one after the other,
Herons going home.
Black shapes against a fading sky,
Beautiful and prehistoric,
None of them looking
At the shadowed trees below them.
Until one crashes the dark branches
To land in moon touched mud
At the side of the silent river.
Looking a bit like a witch
On a wicked broomstick,
Scratchy twigs sweeping
All the little creatures
Out of its imperious way.
Now the trees in the heronry
Are heavy with sleeping birds,
Each quietly contained,
All wrapped up in themselves.
The first stars pricking the sky,
The long dark fish in the water
Flashing a sudden brief silver,
Sharp eyes promising
To eat them in the morning.
Whilst, we, made of earth and sky,
Fold into the stars. Fold into the trees.
And, at the last, fold into the heron.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
THE KILLING FROST
Winter, and the last snow of the year,
Hard frost following.
Its glittering fingers weaving
Over the cherry tree,
Tickling the tight red buds
Which would not open
To the guile of winter
And the cold cold sunlight,
To the spiteful icy kisses
Of the killing frost,
Killing the promise
Of the cherry blossom.
Listen, Lovers.
When frost touches the heart,
It’s all over.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
Poems by Gwen Grant 