Sunday, 5 October 2025

I WAS ON THE POINT OF GIVING UP ON THIS BLOG.....

 ....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.'






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