New poetry from Narrow Gate Press

From Narrow Gate Press comes the first publication of poems by the late David Henschel.


Heres and Nows - poems from a life will be available from Amazon very soon. The link will be posted on this blog.


Meanwhile I shall publish here one poem or a significant extract once a month, and commentary on significant lines or thoughts arising from the book once a week. Please ask permission before reproducing these poems (other than brief extracts for review) as they are subject to copyright. My contact email is at the foot of the right hand column of this page.


Here is the title poem:


Here and Now



Enjoy, oh do enjoy
The hereness and the nowness of it.
Whatever is beyond, behind
Be, if you must, aware of
But not too much – no more than serves
To measure by, to savour by
To live by grace within
The here and now.


It is the clumsy man we too much are
That cannot delicately hold the time
Within his juggling mind
And commandeer the chasing heart
Softly to send the blood like fingers
To touch and know the living hour
And store it richly by.


One day we die.
They say we scan
In the last living moments all our span.
We’d wish, I think, to go to Death
Or God
Like guests with gifts
Remembered and collected from our store
Of heres and nows
And say:
This trust of life’s fulfilled,
This gift’s returned, with more I found:
I was not poor.