MAGNOLIA TREE
The magnolia next door
Has been chopped down.
Never again will it scatter
Its blossom over the grass.
Nor will any wind
Bent on mischief,
Blow its silky petals
Into the water.
Letting the flowers
Dance on the glittering surface
Until they fragment
In the sun.
All that has gone now.
Caught for ever
In the sad and watchful eye.
©2020 Gwen Grant
I just got so exasperated with the poem I was planning to write. I could see
it in my mind’s eye. I could even hear it but I just could not write it. We
were planning a trip to Scotland at the time and I thought maybe that
was where my poem had gone, on the train before ours. So the poem
that got away was probably perfect! Leaving me with this one.
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 lovely 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,
Getting set 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
FOG IN THE MORNING
More fog.
In the paddock,
Sheep, like ghosts,
Drifting up and down
The grass.
This could be yesterday
When we were all young
Together.
The early bus pulling up
At the Pit.
The sound of boots
On the half-hidden
Pavement,
In time for the early shift.
The rest of us asleep
Until the fog clears.
The sheep
Shaking it off their backs.
The lights of the Pit
Floating it
Clean away.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
Where we lived when I was a girl, most of the gardens
around us were like my Dad’s. Full of vegetables, fruit,
flowers and hens. They were beautiful gardens and I
remember our garden with great fondness.
LITTLE BROWN HENS AND RED
My father’s garden was full of little brown hens
High stepping, tippy tapping in and out of the daffodils,
Pecking at the Spring mint, settling in the potato patch,
Always protesting, always complaining.
Not enough of this. Too little of that.
The wicked tortoiseshell cat pinning them down
With eyes greener than the very grass they trod on.
They would crowd around the kitchen door,
Indignant little bodies demanding hen justice.
But they liked their bit of my father’s garden
With worms trying to live quietly beneath them.
Until my cousin came with his hard hands,
Hungry eyes and a heart intent on killing,
Then I went out shouting,
Scattering the little brown hens and the red,
Causing the dark cockerel
To turn his bitter, livid eye on my hateful presence.
Squawking, they fled, hiding under the hen coop.
Darting into the rhubarb leaves at the back of the tree.
But when my cousin kept coming, when his boots broke
The sunny daffodils, I pushed him so hard, he fell over,
I didn’t care about him.
For my little red hens and brown,
The arrogant cockerel with his angry eyes
All lived to tuck themselves up again
And sleep their tiny pulsing sleep.
To wake in the morning,
Ready for another really interesting day.
©2020 Gwen Grant
NIGHT HOURS
Closing on midnight,
With the great starry fields
Lying still and quiet in front of me,
Moonlight falling like water
On the silent trees, the dark furrows,
The creaking ice puddles shining,
Holding stars in their frozen silver,
I see the first ghosts
Of those I have known
Drift across the white horizon,
Mist folding them into sparkling shadows
Slipping through my fingers
When I reach out to touch them,
Take them home.
They don’t go far but wait for me,
Blowing the years in front of them,
Opening this corner and that
To let me see again,
All those I have loved.
All those I love still.
Until the snow finally hides them
And I turn for home,
The trees shivering in sympathy,
Anointing my lonely head
With cold tears of their own.
©2020 Gwen Grant
Poems by Gwen Grant 