PLACES OF INTEREST


PLACES OF INTEREST

There are no more
Unshed tears
Or unshared laughter
Now these Lovers
Have found each other.

Their voices
Are like the wind,
Blowing from one word
To another.

Telling about their deeply secret world
In which the other is a stranger.

Each of them the street map
To their lives and secret longings,
To their griefs and their rejoicings
To the inner places they have lived in.

Making small improvements, of course,
To their own ‘places of interest’
As they went.

        © 2020 Gwen Grant

HOME TIME

 

       HOME TIME

Night falls
And we are a long way
From home.
The silent fields,
Lying flat against the moon,
Placing shadows where shadows
Should be.
No hard corners.

Quaking grass shivering
As a small wind passes through.
Wild roses and yellow honeysuckle
Scenting the air.
And the whole of it so loved,
We begin to think we belong here.
To think we have a home here.

When, really, we know
We have no permanent home anywhere.
None that we have ever recognised
Anyway.

At least, none with a familiar structure.

                                         ©2020 Gwen Grant

GOOD FRIDAY

GOOD FRIDAY 

So now it begins with the sun striking through the tall windows,
Onto the old brown pews and onto the pulpit,
Onto the slender Cross where the weight of this weeping world
Is carried on helpless shoulders,
Onto the crown of thorns blazing in the shadows,
Burning the darkness with its crimson glory. 

This is not a gentle day, yet gentleness persists in breaking through,
For the soaring arc of the wide blue banner
Painted on the far wall of the Chapel,
Painted high above the polished table where blue scented grasses
Quiver in a silver goblet, unquestioning and faithful,
Presents to us those golden words painted on that lovely blue arc,
Words that insist ‘GOD IS LOVE’
Which gently insist it is this we must always remember. 

The singing is bright now, pausing, darkening, lifting, soaring,
Until a sudden startling descant adds its own touch of glory
To all tough and tender hearts caught in a flesh
Ever subject to death and to corruption, yet ever open to joy.
These singers of sacred songs seek the strength of God as they sing
And in those three plain words, GOD IS LOVE, find it. 

Then the crisp cold air smelling faintly of lavender
Drifts like a prayer into the silence and the silence is profound
As silence always is when God is listening.
And God is always listening.
And love is always sending its quiet hope out into the world. 

                                                                              © 2018 GWEN GRANT.