An Evocation of Elizabethan Drama
We look in the world’s eye
to ask if we are so wise now.
When all is not well words dare not fail
to be the questions that answer all
the world will ask of doubt and shame.
Our will is articulate
in finding the meaning
of a balance of possibilities.
We wince in the raw air of winter,
considering how we might measure
a scar, a snare, a nonsense
where once there was reason.
The echo may sound careworn
in its reaches of feeling.
Measure restores the love of mercy.
Geoffrey Heptonstall has worked as a bookseller , managing the Art section of Borders in Cambridge, England. Before that he took charge of French manuscripts for an independent academic publisher in Cambridge. His fourth collection of poetry, A Whispering, was published by Cyberwit June 2023. His first collection, The Rites of Paradise, received critical acclaim when first published in 2020. Sappho’s Moon and The Wicken Bird followed. A novel, Heaven’s Invention, was published by Black Wolf in 2016. The Queen of Alsatia, a novella, was published in Pennsylvania Literary Journal in 2023. A number of plays and monologues have been staged and/or published. He is also a prolific short fiction writer, essayist and reviewer.