looking for this poem

[Margot]

Help!
Does anyone know the poem Key to the Kingdom by Ed Reed? I amtrying to find out where it is published. I had it a long time ago but can no longer find the source. Thanks
Margot

[mono]

Hello, Margot, welcome to the forum. :wave:
Searching through the Internet, I could find few results for any poet named Ed Reed (only some football player :p), but I found a few poems with or containing the title "Key To The Kingdom." Do any of these look familiar?

The Key To The Kingdom

It's not exile, homes and families behind
us, where we meet. It happens anywhere,
now: a stateless
state of no name, quietly seceding
from the crumbling empires round us,

without stamps or Eurovision entries.
No-one does it with a rough guide in a week.
You inhabit it
or nothing. Like this: in a pavement cafe
you blink and you seem to surprise them,

the crowd, all its separate faces at once,
coming out of solution like crystals,
like a rush of starlings
or the breeze that lifts the canvas awning
now and dents your cappuccino froth

with a crisp little sound. And that's it:
between breaths, just between you and me
as if; yes,
QED. You are received. This is
the freedom of the city, and the key

to the kingdom, and its borders ripple
outwards like a frill of breaking wave
onto flat sand,
a wavering line already fading leaving
spume-flecks high and dry,

a prickling on your palm; you're five
years old, looking up at the whole sea,
unsure:
will you laugh or cry?

Peter Gross

-----

Key To The Kingdom

The child has dark eyes, and a shy way
Of putting her head to the shoulder of the worried
Rescue worker, who tries to explain to camera
That the mother is dead, the father is dead, the gunmen
Unknown, but they shot up the party, the Christmas
Party, the same night I was at Carols by Candlelight
In the park with my children on my knees, and my wife
Said to me: “It takes you back to your own childhood,
Doesn’t it?” As the Salvation Army raised
Their splendid brass in the rain, behind them
The lake, brilliant, and with dark lights shaking
Across it, and the minister, who had exactly
My name, proclaimed through the whoop
And whistle of a microphone that the child
In us held the key, the key to the kingdom,
And if only we would kneel with him there
And repent right then, he would guarantee us all
Peace on earth and goodwill to men. But the child
In me looks now at the child with gleaming eyes
Whose parents have been shot by “unknown assailants,”
And I know now that Christ was no better than
This child, and this world shall be changed for her sake.

Peter Anderson

Do any of these look familiar? I could find no other results for the title or poet.

[Margot]

Hi there, Thanks for trying. Neither of these is the poem. I'll keep looking.
Margot