By: Geoffrey Heptonstall

THE PASSING OF WORDS

That I might take from the tree
fresh metaphors, fully grown,
savoured in the reading season
where life is filtered through fading light.

The wild garden lacks the hands
for harvesting its ripening bounty.
Beneath the leaves the poem.
My hunger follows the scent.

Drone of wasp wings haunts the air.
Theirs is a late in the year song
for the passing of words
from hand to mouth to heart.

IN SILENCE MOVING

When a response is delayed
the question holds its breath
in silence moving downstream.
Or so the dawn foretells
in rain incessantly cascading.
No words now can be heard.
This realm of ours is a ruin
falling to a timely end,
following a pattern in the walls
inscribed on the high waterline.
And there a finger runs
to trace a line of explanation.

A CHANCE TAKEN

There is love that is to be
when a strange face is familiar.
Then a history has happened
though it might never have been.

There came an ethereal chance
passing by in opaque tones
waiting for the happenstance,
a prospect in place.

I knew you for our future
after a long season of shadows.
I caught the first of you
waiting thoughtfully with sadness.

It was my head that saw
what was before this
dance of unknown harmonies
touching the goodness within.
This was love that was to be.
of a kind unlocked by loss.

THE WINTER WAKE

We wait to watch the winter flow,
searching for the signs of thaw
on a river we have yet to cross.
Ice cracks as it moves into spring.

The birds survey the cold, still land.
A life may pass in a feather’s flight.
The prospect is conjectural.
No-one can believe what they see,
like a bride at a requiem.
So many misunderstandings.
A bird follows the course of the water.
While others are planning to remain,
so many have gone in the meantime
down to the opening sea mouth.
All we can hear is unconnected
where there is no metaphor
frozen on the seeker’s lips:
how may the winter wake?

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Geoffrey Heptonstall’s sixth collection of poetry is The Truth on the Tongue, was published by Cyberwit in 2025.. A novel, Heaven’s Invention, was published by Black Wolf in 2016.