I first blogged this poem in October 2017 when blogging was absolutely new and strange to me and I was unaware of how much pleasure it would bring.

We have a favourite place in Scotland that overlooks the River Tay, so we often just sit there and watch the water.  The Tay is also known as the ‘Silver’ Tay and it really does shine silver.  It’s a very beautiful river.

Behind where we sit, there is an Old People’s Care Home and the ladies are often sat in their little conservatory.  Although they are old and sometimes fragile, you can still see in them the lovely young women they once were.  That they can see the Tay, too, must be a tremendous pleasure to them.

This is the poem I wrote about that Care Home and the ladies.

                        LOOKING ACROSS THE TAY

The swans are out again,
Shimmering on the dark water,
Dipping into the splashes of moonlight
they become moonlight themselves,
Every feather sculpted in light.
Little white snowflake swans
Drifting down the silent river.

Behind us lies the Care Home,
Where glass walls welcome the lovely moon
And one lone bed
With a quilt as red as roses,
Lies empty in a corner.    

The old ladies who live there,
Watching the white and sparkling swans
Sailing on the glittering water,
Dreamily send their pretty, remembered bodies,
Down that golden moonlit path.
Frail little birds
Who soon overtake the swans.

This river and heaven
Must have a lot in common.              

©GWEN GRANT

 

There is a beautiful Magnolia tree in the garden next to ours and it seems to change almost daily, one day full of flowers, the next full of buds and then raggy and desolate with dead and dying leaves.  Except!  Behind the leaves are the new tight little buds waiting for their moment in the sun.  Then, sitting in a car park, staring out at a scrubby piece of neglected woodland, I saw the bright berries of the holly and the determined onslaught of the ivy. 

SHINE ON 

Next door’s Magnolia
Has turned brown.
All leaves gone,
Except the one
That shakes its little
Brown body
In the winter wind,
Excited by new buds
Breaking through.
Pushing its own slow dying
To one side.

Down the lane,
Red berries
Beam their small cheer
Through the frost bitten branches,
Keeping a wary eye
On the jealous Ivy,
Darkly waiting its chance
To put out their fire.
Always ready to extinguish
Any spark of hope.

                                  © Gwen Grant

 

STARTING OVER

Late love,
With all its tenderness,
Turns us all
Into navigators,
Archaeologists,
Gently blowing the dust of years
From the site of yesterday.
Sometimes finding the splendours
Of Carter’s Tutankhamen,
Sometimes bringing to the light
A tiny twist of yellow gold,
Its brightness hidden from invaders.

Cautious, careful,
We read books that tell us
How to discover each other.
One mystery sliding alongside another.
Two historians coming together,
Compiling a definitive account
Of their life and times.

You know what?
A hand reaching out for a hand,
A smile answering a smile
Breaks it all down
To where any Lover could build a castle,
Or a small shed if wanted,
With a water feature on the patio.
The oceans of the world
Lapping the edge of the garden.

                                  © Gwen Grant

             

When I was a child, I was sent away for a year for my health.  Everything there was the exact opposite to my home.  No bright colours as at home and, of course, with so many children to care for, instead of love, there was an impartial interest and care.  There are many times we would not go back to and this was one of them.

          LET IT BE

Last night,
The apple tree turned white,
Its wide skirts trembling
As if some fabulous ballerina
Was dancing over the grass.

For a moment,
I was taken back
To my childhood.
Looking at an apple tree
Through a window,
Where my finger nail
Scraped long strands of frost.

Then I was a long way from home.
A long way from love and colour,
Close to dark uniforms,
To squares of aprons
Crackling in snowy starchiness.
White caps like fearful torches
Breaking the dusky violet night,
Making me weep for home.

                                     Now making me glad that none of us
                                     Can inhabit the past.

                             © Gwen Grant

 

 

        RESURRECTION

We all have our own Gethsemane
When times are against us,
When, faultless and perfect,
Darkness no longer has an airy lightness
But falls upon us
With the full weight of sorrow.

From Gethsemane there comes always
That long walk to the crucifixion of hope,
That slow procession into loneliness,
That sombre step into a darkness, where love
Becomes nothing but an old and lovely dream.

Yet that dark garden,
Those dark blossoms flowering,
Flame with the resurrection of a living hope,
Throwing light into the darkness,
Bringing peace to the desolate,
Making all love new,
Its eternal promise forever redeeming,
That where love is,
Time no longer has any meaning.
                                   © Gwen Grant