TIME AND AGAIN

Giacometti

TIME AND AGAIN

All the quiet hours
Have slipped away,
The laughing and the weeping
Whirled into nothingness,
But love remains,
Burning with the desire
To create a new reality.

We can change nothing that has gone,
Yet as unblemished time
Stretches out before us,
We are impatient,
Longing to tumble down
Those promised days.
Hold the hours together,
Holding on for each other,
Bringing hope,
Bringing love that changes everything.

                                ©2018 Gwen Grant

A WHOLENESS OF LOVE


A WHOLENESS OF LOVE

There is a delicacy about a life
Grounded in love.
A strength of sweetness
That in its sunny passion
Adds up to more than the sum of its parts.

More than hope,
More than peace,
More than all the other lovely verities
Love holds close within it.

For it is a generosity of spirit
Upon which all love is founded,
Revealing itself in a precise and passionate
Understanding of helpless need.

Always ready to dance,
Always ready to share in joy,
Always and forever reaching out a hand,
Holding on as long as needed.

                                     ©2017 Gwen Grant

LET IT BE

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.

Before the next winter’s frost,
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.

©2019 Gwen Grant

GARDEN IN THE MORNING

GARDEN IN THE MORNING

Jay bird,
Lovely beyond words,
Visiting the apple tree
On its way to something better.
Gleaming palely through the leaves.

On the fence,
Two black collared doves
Sit grumpy and silent,
Watching the crows swooping low.
Not fooled by their wings
Splashing shade on the hot grass
For their killing patches.

The old cat,
Marmalade fur thin and crumpled
As creased taffeta,
Knowing climbing is beyond him
Takes his anger out on the brassy magpie,
Chasing this feathered beauty
From one end of the garden
To the other.

Until the magpie tires of taunting
The old cat.
Wisely remembering its sharp claws
And its will to kill those that torment him.

                                  ©2021 Gwen Grant.