DUCKS AND CHANCES

DUCKS AND CHANCES

The last time we were flooded,
Our garden became a sudden pond
For the three ducks who flew down
To swim in this new and exciting
Stretch of water.

The cat, furious, hissed at them
Through the rain-swept window,
Paws trying to push through the glass.

But as I watched them,
Regretting the lavender and philadelphus,
I decided that from now on
I would be like those ducks and take on
All unexpected chances,
Refusing to be chased away
Until I had at least paddled in the water.

                 ©2020 Gwen Grant

  BLUE TIME IN SPRING TIME

The last time I posted this poem, I was just out of hospital and
stuck in a wheelchair, so this place was just a lovely memory.
Now, one year later, we’ve been in lockdown and still couldn’t
get back for Spring but, as I said then, this is where I want to
visit again, even though we are heading for Autumn.

BLUE TIME IN SPRING TIME 

Walking over them, I half expected to fall
Into the great blue gaiety of a perfect sunny sky,
For the small blue flowers, no bigger than a grain of corn,
Were blue stars under my feet, their eternal beauty
Starring this world through the gentle hand of love. 

There is a deep tenderness in this wood, a deep love,
For here the purple flower, there, the red.
Now a creamy bank of butter yellow blossom gleaming
in the shadows,
Delighting, enchanting, lifting up to their own joyful gaiety
All those who walk under the dappling leaves.
The trees themselves swaying with delighted laughter
At this sunny celebration.

Beyond the blue flowers,
Beyond the pale grey stone and faded tags of leafy gold,
A fish leaps up through the sunlit water,
Glittering blue against the brown washed banks of the lake
drying in the morning sun,
And a swan glides by in slow, grave beauty. 

Down this path the dandelion, that shock headed golden
explosion,
Almost touches the red petals of a heavy blossomed tree,
A tiny goldfinch darting amongst them.
In the distance, a flash of blue as a jay flies to a far horizon,
Whilst a rich darkness shows up the blue black crow.
The squirrel pauses on its tiny orange feet
And the drake flies low, a dash of iridescent blue.
Then the blowing leaves whirl their tiny shadows under the trees
And the blue wash of bluebells turns the forest floor into a
dark blue sea. 

And in a thousand, thousand places,
In the bramble and in the thorn,
In the dark silhouette of twigs lying flush against the blue sky,
In the fallen flowers lying on the grass,
In the purple and the red and the water floating blue.
The blue bells ring this steady proof of love. 

                                                       © 2018 Gwen Grant

CIRCLING ROUND   

             CIRCLING ROUND                          

Sometimes lovers are surprised
By their own ardent fire,
Scorched by the ferocity of the flame
Blazing in them.
Until, flying too close to this new sun,
They are wrecked and wounded by rejection. 

But lovers wind the thin linen of consolation
Around a damaged heart.
Forgiving unfulfilled promises,
Waiting it out.
Sure the beloved will ease their pain,
Turn back to them. 

For this is the love they have waited for.
So no wound, mortal or easeful,
Will ever wrest it from them.
Nothing will stop their suffering,
For pain is part of love’s package,
And lovers drown in desire
Until desire destroys them. 

Lost love is a bad dream,
Rejected love, a nightmare.
Only when the ecstasy burns out,
The flame turns to ash, the fire to cinders,
And the old love done with,
Can a new and glorious passion begin. 

                                    © 2017 Gwen Grant

DEATH OF A HEDGEROW

  

       DEATH OF A HEDGEROW 

There was a death here in the field last night
As stars roared down in furious fists of light,
Fiery angels falling upon the wrecked and bone wracked field
That held the little dead close to its poor and wretched ground,
Angels wept and still are weeping. 

The cries of lost frail birds pierced the grieving air,
As the hedgerow with its white blossom and its red,
Its spiders and its spider web,
Its nests of twigs and thin sheep hair
Are ripped out, crushed, and the field laid bare.

The pink dog-rose and the quiet teazle,
The dark green leaves called ‘bread-and-cheese,’
Crisp and sour upon the tongue.
The honey sip from ferocious nettle
That once found rest in the dark hedgerow,
Below the honeysuckle and the wild pink rose,
Gone now and forever gone.  

Now the fiery angels,
Lift the little tender dead in burning arms,
Roar with fury as steel and brick and concrete
Press the primrose and the snowdrop down,
Destroy the buttercup and the rabbit tracks,
Wreck small forgotten stands of corn,
And at the last, kill the gentle quaking grass. 

The hedgerow has gone
And my heart is breaking. 

                                 © 2020 Gwen Grant.

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