....when I saw two responses today that weren't totally off the wall and irrelevant, as most of the previous responses were, sadly to say.
The first was a beautifully relevant appreciation of my sonnet, 'The Heart in the Wall', with some questions which I tried to answer. I was somewhat late in getting back to the pseudonymous enquirer, as the appreciation was published on 05 January last! Coincidentally, I have just come back from a poetry festival in Italy in which I read the same poem with an Italian translation by Rita Castigli.
I am encouraged to post the same poem again, as it is one very dear to me.
THE HEART IN THE WALL
In the boundary wall of a convent school
close to my home, there’s a heart-shaped stone
beneath hanging leaves. Half-meshed in sleep,
I’m waiting at a bus-stop by the wall
to join the Monday morning's obsequies,
and notice that the stone has been redone
bright red, the scrawl of teen initials gone:
a valentine shines nameless under boughs.
A boy once loved a girl who took the veil,
choosing the ghostly company of saints.
An old man now, at night he travels still
once or twice a year to rejuvenate
the heart contained within the convent wall.
Somebody holds a torch for him; he paints.
The other query was from a secondary school student in London asking some probing questions about 'Please Hold', which is on the EdExcel A Level English Literature Course. And as the fella said, 'If ya haven't heard of it by now, you're not really in the loop.'
