One of my favourite things is walking.  I used to walk a lot at night, loving the darkness  and the way the world changed in the fields and hedgrows.  This was an encounter with a poacher.  They were such silent and still men when they heard anyone coming, so they could frighten the wits out of you when you spotted them.

      POACHER’S MOON

 That night, when I was out,
Walking the frozen fields,
He was the only stranger,
The Poacher,
Standing still as a death stone
Under the oak tree,
Switching on his head lamp
Only when I was past.
Blinding me and the rabbit,
Blinding me and the hare.
And I wondered if this was the time
Me and the pheasant,
The deer and the rabbit,
The cunning old fox and the hare
Would all lie down together
In the white and frosted furrows,
To lie there for ever.
For I had seen the Poacher,
By dint of old and wicked country magic
Of Deadly Nightshade and of Henbane,
Leap into the sky above us.
His head lamp shining away
Every shadow that would save us.
Until I looked again and saw
The Poacher’s moon. 

                                         ©2019 Gwen Grant

I heard of a friend dying and I thought of the person left behind, in winter, when there seems to be no consolation anywhere, so I hoped that maybe sitting outside on a wooden bench, feeling the strength of the wood, might help.  And there’s such a lot to cherish on winter nights.  I hoped the beauty and bitter cold would make themselves felt as friends at a time when a silent friend was needed.

               WINTER IS COMING 

Winter is coming, circling around the house and garden
The grass already white over,
The last of the dahlias bending their heads to the cold.
Over the hedge, a fierce, clear brilliance sets everything sparkling.
Even the big tree, all leaves lost, stands white and starry.
Somewhere, over the fields, a fox barks,
Sending the plump little pheasants huddling deeper into cover. 

Darkness down the quiet street,
Split now by a square of yellow light flaring in an anxious window.
Not long after, the long car of a night Doctor pulls up silently.
A brisk tap tap of sharp heels urgent to the waiting door wide open,
Makes the sleeping houses quiver.
All those still awake, sinking deeper into their restless pillows,
Pulling the covers over their heads. 

Slowly, the moonlight drifts across the garden,
Lovely shards of icy silver picking out the stray black cat,
Courageous as any Roman conqueror,
Shadowing the grass with his magnificent presence. 

Then the creak of an old bench, as someone, out there in the darkness,
Newly bereft and soundlessly weeping clutches at the solid wood.
Praying its solidity will lend itself to their splintered grief
In this new world they are suddenly lost in.
This is the way it is, when winter is circling around the house and garden,
And people are lying in their beds, thinking. 

                                                                                              © 2018 Gwen Grant

I just got so exasperated with this poem.  I could see it in my mind’s eye. I could even hear it but I just couldn’t write it.   We were planning a trip to Scotland at the time and I thought maybe that was where my poem had gone, in the train before ours.  So this was the poem that got away.  The one that was perfect, of course, with all the lovely cadences that a good poem has.

 THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

The last time I saw that poem
It was getting on a train
For the far north.
It likes it up there,
Crunching about in the ice and snow,
Climbing up small mountains,
Picking up the odd abandoned word or phrase
Lying amongst the grey stones and heather.

By nightfall, it’ll be in its room, changing,
Emptying its pockets onto the bed,
Choosing a word to sparkle here,
A phrase to quietly glow there.
Ready, now, for a night of changing partners.
Until all scrubbed up, brushed down
And wildly excited,
It’s finally ready to dance.

Any time now, I expect that poem to come home.

                                             © 2019 Gwen Grant

 THE LION MAN

This lion man
Is so beautiful
It makes my heart
Tremble.

For in its
Wrecked and lovely
Countenance,
I see
The endurance
Of all
Born from darkness
Into this greater darkness,
Where every soul realizes
Its aloneness.
Its bitter,
Bleak,
Irredeemable
Loneliness.

Yet lovers must love,
Words fall
From loving lips.
Hands touch
Souls
Courageous
In their enduring,
Gentle
In their laughter,
Resolute
In their bold living.

Only compassion
Can bring
Light
To that darkness.
Only hope
Inhabit those frozen
Wastes
Of aloneness.
Only love
Create the Lion man
In us all.

                      © 2019 Gwen Grant