The birds are very busy just now and they zip past our windows on their ever hasty
way  but every now and again, one of these lovely creatures lands at the bottom of
our garden and we get to see the heron in all its archaic wonder and grace.   They are so
totally beautiful that, as we used to say, their utter loveliness completely
knocks your socks off.

                    THAT OLD DINOSAUR BIRD 

That old dinosaur bird came galumphing down the river
Like an aeroplane on its last legs,
Whose engine is bumping and jumping
Through the twilit air. 

Not the most graceful bird,
But incredibly beautiful in a Picasso’ish kind of way,
And Picasso would be thrilled to paint him
If he had his time again,
And make of that heron
A rapturously lovely, joyful,
Sort of dazzling cubist display. 

Uh oh, there he goes again!
Crashing down so close to the water
He could dip his long archaic beak
Into the river and spear a fish.
Or seize that crouching ginger cat watching him
And flip it into the trees for the fun of it. 

‘SPLASH’ he goes, and the whole river shudders,
Other birds whistle and shake their heads,
‘Dinosaur bird,’ you can almost hear them say,
‘When are you ever going to learn to land
In a proper, elegant, bird-of-flight’ish sort of way?’
But that bony bird doesn’t care.
He just flaps away.

                                                           ©  2018 GWEN GRANT 

PRIVATE KEEP OUT!  by Gwen Grant
published by Penguin Vintage  Children’s Classics
available in paperback and as ebook

There has been a little flurry of herons going down to the river lately. 
If we are lucky, they seem to take a short cut  across
the sky, curving across the emptiness as if it’s a road already
marked out, then dropping down through the trees into the river.
They’re all magicians these lovely creatures that illuminate our
lives for when they appear, heron, rabbit, pheasant, fox,  whatever
presence they inhabit,  immediately they capture our full attention
and send us on our way full of joy and hope and love .

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

Night walks are my favourite walks, not as often now as they used
to be and not as adventurous, either. I’m almost at the point of down
the road and back , which isn’t as bad as it may seem as we live in a
quieter part of the village with hedgerows and fields and patches of the
woodland I used to play in when I was a child.    This is a picture of a bit
of a night wood waiting for morning.

MIDNIGHT WALK

      Walking through the dark trees,
      My steps sending little puffs of dust
      Over the small curling ferns crouching.
     The faint shine of a white petal
     Breaks through the intense darkness,
     Until a sudden throw of moonlight
     Brings the pale anemones,
     The golden celandine,
     Into perfect life on the woodland floor.

     I hear the soft shuffling of birds in their nests,
     Heads tucked under their wings,
     Deeply sleeping.
     Then the tiny bubbling of water running
     Down the little, half-hidden stream,
     Throwing the odd diamond drop
     Onto the yellow primrose.

     Here, small brown creatures
     Slip in and out of the freezing water,
     Icy, from the still snow laden hills so faraway
     This wood never thinks of them.
     Nor do we, until, we, too, are frozen.

     Out of the trees, onto the edge of the fields
     That stretch into the darkness,
     The small growings rustling an excited invitation
     To walk the night
     Over ploughed earth and stony frost sparkling
     To the far wood, which magic is held to own.
     But I turn back, not ready to meet a veiled magician
     Of spite, dead things and stagnant water.
     And the trees swallow me
     As a shadow is swallowed by darkness.

     Now the wood shakes itself,
     The trees whispering of this returned presence
    Walking their quiet and mossy paths.
     And I turn for home,
     To the lovely fragrance of wild roses
     In the hedgerows.

                                    ©2018 Gwen Grant