STARTING OVER

Late love,
With all its tenderness,
Turns us all
Into navigators,
Archaeologists,
Gently blowing the dust of years
From the site of yesterday.
Sometimes finding the splendours
Of Carter’s Tutankhamen,
Sometimes bringing to light
A tiny twist of yellow gold,
Its brightness hidden from invaders.

Cautious, careful,
We read books that tell us
How to discover each other.
One mystery sliding alongside another.
Two historians coming together,
Compiling a definitive account
Of their life and times.

You know what?
A hand reaching out for a hand,
A smile answering a smile
Breaks it all down
To where any Lover could build a castle,
Or a small shed if wanted,
With a water feature on the patio.
The oceans of the world
Lapping the edge of the garden.

                                  © 2019 Gwen Grant

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We saw this hedgerow on an evening run when we were in Scotland for a few days.  It was so beautiful, it made me want to do a Sound of Music and run through it barefoot!
Such hedgerows were common when I was young and we would gather a couple of cornflowers and penny moons but leave the ragwort alone for it has a harsh scent to it.
They don’t last long but a tiny bunch of these flowers in one of the old glass milk bottles looked lovely.

    DUSK IN LATE SPRING 

That evening, the country road
Was a deep soft grey
Where nothing could be properly seen,
Only the lovely shadows of bush and tree
And the soft blue haze of cornflowers
Studding the hedgerow. 

A moment of joy. 

Then the intermittent dull gold
Of the ragwort,
Lifting sudden head and shoulders
Over the pale penny moons.
The whole so beautiful,
That little country road
Will live with me for ever. 

                            ©2020 Gwen Grant

 

At my brother’s funeral last Monday, I thought of all the years we had shared and
of our shared happiness and sorrows.  My eldest brother died last year and Dina
died two years ago.

   HOLDING TOGETHER

Holding together
In some far flung corner
Of yesterday,
We wait in silence
For darkness to separate us. 

Already, it has taken
Those we could not bear to lose.
And like a spoilt child
Who will not pass the ball,
Darkness never gives them back. 

Our tears seem useless,
Yet, every tear proves
The continued existence
Of love.

© 2020 Gwen Grant

Street for Survivors by Hundretwasser

       HOMELAND

The good thing, of course,
Is that there’s plenty of space
In Love for everyone.
Plenty of places
To make ourselves at home
And plenty of time,
What with love being timeless
And all that,
To build a love strong enough
To defeat any trouble
And make a place for us.

                                 ©2020 Gwen Grant

 

LOVERS

Either he came along too late,
Or she was born too soon.
Whichever it was,
Those years they had lost
Were wild and wide and gone,
So they had a lot to catch up on.

On both sides,
There were exciting times to talk through.
For each of them,
Desperate days to walk through.
Still, there was plenty to talk about,
Plenty to discover about each other,
Lover to Lover.

So now, all was well and all was well,
For the living was just beginning.
The two of them, together,
Putting time in its place,
Slipping all those lost hours
Into their pockets,
To be remembered only when they felt
Strong enough to face them.

But not now, they decided, not now
And maybe not ever,
Not when the days were shining,
The nights blazing and burning
With no charred mornings to speak of.
Not when a plain old blade of grass
Spoke of heaven,
The heaven that lay in each other
Now time and love were with them,
New Lover loves New Lover.

Old lovers sent to the car wash.

                                          © 2018 Gwen Grant