Geoffrey Heptonstall is the author of Heaven’s Invention, a novel [Black Wolf 2017] The Rites of Paradise, a full poetry collection, was published to critical acclaim in 2020. Sappho’s Moon appeared in 2021. Both are published by Cyberwit at Allahabad University. He wrote regularly for The London Magazine 2007-2018. He currently writes for La Piccioletta Barca in Cambridge where he resides.
L’amour, toujours une résonance,
suit bientôt le familier certain
bruit d’une fièvre matinale,
la musique d’une chanson inconnue,
un chant des enfants.
Considering the world
is all within the walls
well made of shadow and sun.
Light in the waking of life:
this is how the day begins
with cold candle wax tears
and wine lingering in the glass.
Love, always a resonance,
soon follows the familiar certain
sound of a morning fever,
the music of an unknown song.
There are children sounding
like the sea, in the trees
a winter away from the sun
when souls rest from seeking
a peace that speaks no more
in terms of pity, in time of war.
That is the blood that flows
dispelling doubt through the dust
pale as ancestral memory
of distant, other places –
a rumour across the delta
where land and ocean confide
the enchantment of return,
the redemption of the real.
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Poetry in this post: © Geoffrey Heptonstall
Published with the permission of Geoffrey Heptonstall