PRESENT ETERNITY

If she had to cut her coat
According to her cloth,
The old girl knew
It was going to be a damn thin coat,
Nowhere near thick enough
To keep out the cold.

Glancing into a passing shop window,
She felt absolutely fed-up,
For the coat she had been wearing
For all of her present eternity
Was thin, too, and wrinkled,
Needing an iron.

But, sighing, with a bit of luck,
she knew she would
Patch it up a few more times
Before she was ready to change it.

                      © 2018 Gwen Grant

OUT OF THE DARKNESS

When it’s all over bar the shouting,
When the last tear has fallen
And the shocked heart has settled
Once more to its beating.
When the requiem for the lost
Has played its final bleak murmuring
And sorrow brings the broken to their knees,
That is when all that is left is love,
Love is all that is left.

But what good is left-over love
To the shattered heart?
What good is hope
Lying broken in the darkness?

Out of the darkness come the rains
To fill the dry beds of rivers
With water moving silky as young women sleeping,
Rolling and twisting, twisting and turning,
Their long bony feet stretching thinly behind them;
When trees come to leaf like young men leaping
Up branches to touch the first floor of heaven,
Strong hands full of leaves, now full of flowerings
And dry deserts blooming.

So when all is said and done,
The requiem over and silence soft fallen.
That is when all that is left is love
And love is all.

©2019 Gwen Grant

   THE PALE ROAD

The house is quiet, silent,
Except for the ticking of the big clock
At the bottom of the stairs,
Whose chimes keep company
With those who cannot sleep.

Just before dawn,
A thin moon slides in through the window
And in a moment those awake
Walk the pale road of remembrance,
Of longing, until the past
Becomes the pale road of prayer.

Let the clock chime again,
That the past may be left behind,
The moon soothe the restless heart,
The whispered words bring peace.

                      ©2021 Gwen Grant.