These mountains enfold peace. All that can be heard are the far away
sounds of birds and water, the sound of the wind, and the rattling of
loose stones as they are dislodged by even the most careful feet. Then,
quite suddenly, a jet aircraft screams through the sky, weaves around,
swooping so close until you’re convinced they’ve come to give you a
lift, then they’re gone. And we look at the eagles hovering, balancing
on the air, letting the silence return.

THE MOUNTAIN

It is wild up here.
The wind and the rocks and the dry grass
Do not care
Who sees them,
Nor how far you have come.

They are going nowhere.
They can wait
Until you have gone.

But when you’ve gone,
Like silk,
The rocks will tumble
Into lovely shapes.

A veil,
A waterfall,
A plume of stones
To lie on the dry, dry, grass.
Making the mountain beautiful.

A tiny reminder
Of the grandeur of love.

                © 2017 Gwen Grant.

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