This is a MISS McPHERSON poem, one of many children’s poems I wrote for
                                         Southwell Minster magazine.

                                                 THE LAST PSALM

You know when one person sneaks up on another person
And scares them?
Well, this is exactly what happened with us and Miss McPherson
That awful morning when, totally without warning, she flung out her arms
And, ‘Psalms, children!’ she cried. ‘Psalms! Psalms!  Psalms!’

The whole class froze.
No-one blinked their eyes, licked their lips or even picked their nose.
But we all fretted
Because the last psalm we ever heard
We had to be the sheep and Phoenix was the shepherd,
Who was supposed to lead us safely through the school and down the halls
But banged us into desks and doors and crashed us into walls.
Until, Miss McPherson frowned, ‘Phoenix. Please!  Sit down.
Let this be a lesson, sheep. Only follow God around.’

Chantal, who’s new, she stood up.
‘I know all about palms, Miss,’ she said, coughed once, then went,
‘The tree that is known as a palm, can only grow where it is warm.’
‘Palms?’ cried Miss McPherson, so amazed,
She had to hang onto the Assembly hall curtain.
‘Not palms, Chantal. Psalms!   Like the last psalm.
That dear little, sweet little, neat little psalm
That sings of God and His heavens all studded with stars.’

‘What!’ Tracey asked.  ‘Like Ruby’s Mum who has studs
In places you can see and in places that you can’t?’
‘No,’ said Miss McPherson.
Even though Ruby’s Mum’s diamond studs sparkle in the dark.

Jason read that psalm and it was really sharp.
‘Sing and dance for God,’ he read. ‘Play the lyre and the harp.’
‘You don’t want to go near no harp,’ Harry warned.
‘Strum your fingers down those wires once only
And it’ll slice them up like pepperoni.’

We hadn’t got any lyres, (Only Charles, ha ha!)
Nor flutes, nor harps, nor timbrels.
But we had drums, Miss McPherson’s old piano, and two shining sets of cymbals.
So, we danced and sang for God until music rocked the school
And tumbled every single person out of every single room
To join in that last psalm song.
‘But the best thing about it all,’ Clyde said,
‘The psalm was so short and the joy was so long.’

                                                                     ©Gwen Grant

                                 SMALL BLUE FLOWERS

 
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 tender hand of God.

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, I see the Cross.
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.
I hear the blue bells toll the hour of noon,
Ringing the truth built into the Cross,
The hope that glows in its very wood,
The promise of God, that steady proof of love. 

                                                       ©GWEN GRANT
                                                                              

A ‘Miss McPherson’ poem:  

     LOVE ONE ANOTHER, JESUS SAID

Harry said, ‘Please, Miss,
You know what Jesus told us
About loving one another
Like, you know, a sister or a brother?’

Miss McPherson said, ‘I do.’

‘Well,’ Harry went on, ‘I think
The Bible got it wrong.
It should have said,
Only love one another as long
As it isn’t Burton Lomax,
Because,’ Harry was unsteady,
‘If I saw a lion, Miss McPherson,
I’d point to that Burton Lomax person
And say, ‘There, lion, your lunch is ready.’

Chad stood up and said
He’d thought this ‘love’ thing through.
‘What Jesus meant,’ Chad said,
‘Was love one another when it’s good old Chad,
But not to bother, Harry, when it’s you.’

‘No! No!  No!’ Miss McPherson roared,
‘When Jesus said ‘Love one another as I love you,’
That, Chad, is exactly what He meant.
Even if that other person is not now
Not ever will be, Harry, anything like a friend.
For Jesus knew that if we love Him first
And love Him best,
To love one another, especially Burton Lomax,
Will be the one thing we really want to do.’

‘?!?’ Harry almost asked.
But, ‘?!?’ said Burton Lomax.

                                                     ©GWEN GRANT

HERE IS THE TRUE GLORY

Here is the true glory of the world.
Here, in the little fluting birds,
In the first quiet gifts of grass and herbs
God gave to us.
Here lies the true glory.

If you have never seen it, or seeing it, dismissed it,
Look again.
Let this great carnival of green and gold,
Of sunlight and arched shadow,
Of leaves and trees and branches invite you in
Until you are captivated, seized, submerged and drowned
In the worlds created for us,
As freed by the beauty of the sunflower
As we are set free by the grace of God’s love.

Here, in the sunny alfalfa and rye,
In the corn grass and blue grass,
In the little quaking grass,
Lie our little quaking hearts, stunned, half weeping, half fainting,
Before this certain proof of love’s existence.

Parsley, dill, mint and marjoram,
Sweet herbs foaming like a green sea,
Yellow flowered and sharp scented,
Given to seam the earth with fine roots,
Thin as cotton,
Unbreakable as purpose and meaning,
Sewing and pleating the world together,
Setting an example of love.

From our places, from the minarets and spires,
The domes and spaces of these earthly temples
Wherein we live,
Where what we are is cocooned and opposed to change,
Resolute and unchanging, we resist love.
Yet only through love can we be changed,
To send our voices fluting like birds,
Leaping and rising, soaring up to God the giver
Of sweet grasses and herbs.
We leap up!  We leap up!
Knowing what we are
But wanting what we could be.
Giver of herbs and grasses, make us what we should be.
                                                                       ©  GWEN GRANT.