THE GRACE OF LOVE

Tenderly, let memory slide
From you to me
And me to you.
Gently, let time’s long tide
Wash over me
And over you.
From what remembered things
Are left behind,
From light to dark
We’ll pick and choose and find,
And use the whole
To heal and bind,
You to me
And me to you.

           © GWEN GRANT

             WHEN YOU WERE HERE

When you were here
There were hollyhocks in the garden.
Your shadow passed the house and stopped
Before the red lights of the Station crossing.
I saw you everywhere then.
The flap of your coat round a distant corner,
Your green shirt adding a leaf to the darkness of
a familiar tree.
In your buttonhole you wore a bright red poppy,
Those flowers of memory that now I give to you
As once you gave to me.

Still I see you.
There is no road, no court, no turning in this town
That does not carry the imprint of your sandalled foot.
No fence, no wall, no plot that does not hold
The touch of your dark and curious eyes.

When you came home after the war was over,
You carried me round this town upon your shoulder,
Until I, too, recognised each old leaf and stone
And your friends’ faces I knew almost as I knew your own.

But now you’re gone,
And all those things you taught and told me,
Which were as near to me as my blood,
Have faded in the bleaching touch of our lost sun,
Except my knowledge of you, and of your love.   

                                                                 © GWEN GRANT

                         ON THE HILLS

When the sun shines,
It glitters on the little pools of water
Lying on the rough grass.
No water witch is needed here
To find a Spring;
Any dowsing stick would jump out of her hand.
For there are fountains of water
Surging up and down and round this mountain,
Drenching the earth,
Having fun in the darkness.

At night,
Stars use these pools to look in.
Leaning right down
To admire themselves.
Sometimes, leaning too far,
They fall into the water and drown.

In the morning,
When the sun shines,
Glittering in the little pools
That look like stars lying on the grass,
Clouds roll over the sun
And the sky weeps
To see her little stars all gone.

                                                             ©GWEN GRANT

                       BUTTERFLIES

 She was standing in the doorway
Of the Sally Army shop,
In that chill nine-o-clock morning,
Waiting to step out as I stepped in.
Suddenly, spying the necklace I was wearing,
She cried, ‘What a very pretty thing,’
Admiring the six enamelled butterflies
On their long chain swinging.
The sixth butterfly pinned by a single wing
As if it had escaped, then seized again.

She was tall and thin, half starved, I thought.
Her old face stunned with loneliness.
But her eyes were ready for anything,
Any adventure the day might bring.

She said, ‘May I enquire where you got it from?’
‘A Bring-and-Buy,’ I told her, ‘raising money for someone.’
Her own clothes so old, she could have made a killing
If they’d been sold as well-kept vintage,
Like her cherry shoes all polished and twinkling.

‘Don’t suppose they had another one?’ she smiled,
Lipstick crazing her crumpled skin.
And I wished with all my heart
I could pull out an enamelled butterfly.
A Red Admiral, perhaps, or a Cabbage White,
Or, best of all, the rare and lovely Adonis Blue,
And give it to her, for I knew what she would do.
She would pin it on her chic old turban
And cry, ‘There! Good as new!’

 One last smile, one last giddy wave
Of those delicate fingers
And she was almost gone.
Until I reached out and caught her fingers in my own.
Then, ‘Well,’ she said, our hands pulling away,
‘I can’t remember when I last had such an exciting day.’
And, smiling, we went our separate ways.
But I remain so glad I met her.

                                             © GWEN GRANT

                   GHOST TRAIN

Everyone at the Fair told me
The ghost train isn’t real.
There are no ghosts in that tunnel
With eyes of fire and hands of steel.
There are no ghosts hanging just above you,
Ready to drag you from your seat
And nibble your bones and suck your blood
And turn your eyes into mud.
No, there’s no such thing as ghosts.

‘Go on it,’ everyone told me,
There’s nothing there to fear,
There are no ghosts in that tunnel.
Except, maybe, the lad from our street
Who was lost in there last year.

He was sat at the back of the ghost train,
All alone on a big empty seat,
And they say that a ghost came and got him
Because all they found were the shoes off his feet.

So when the ghost train roars round the bend,
Swoops through the water
And comes out at the end,
Well, right in the middle of that tunnel,
There’s a thin white ghost who shrieks.
Look at him as you go rumbling past
And you’ll see it’s the lad from our street.

©GWEN GRANT