Walking to the Moon

An uncertain beginning,
and all is anticipation
of our histories foretold.
Imagining Genesis inscribed
in memory of everything.
 
Sunrise at the opening hour,
Creation’s revelation now the perpetual is waiting
for all that moves here as infinite.
Such untraveled time to be in noon light
revealed as truth composing the words proposed.
 
She strides through the rain, feet almost dancing on stone
in the rhythm of the storm,
her mind elsewhere, a dream
of strangers and other places open
to speak in love of what might be
and a prayer in the darkness
when day is one life, the night another
becoming every chance that falls
beyond all who see her.
Or a life of waiting time broken
by the mind she has made, remembering
indifference is everything.
 
In that moment there was nothing
when the song was in the stillness
of a certain world with no sound
spoken even for the time.
When was only rumoured
in the narrow of unknowing.
And every act is innocence.
 
Midsummer children are counting the stars.
Our thoughts are stirred by the storm
when memories of desolation run
so suddenly through her waking mind
shaken by the wind
until stilled by words spoken.
They taste on the tongue like the fruits of paradise.
From there they surely fall to earth
to lie among the discards of the streets
where the wild boys play with danger.
And elegant women are always aware that they may need to fly.
 
The artist in his tower paints the scene:
how the moon is becalmed
by the delicacy of senses
in the one he chooses
to pursue in azure, indigo and silver.
These are the colours working his vision
of the world where she walks
beneath his tower, beyond his reach.
Out of darkness comes the thought,
at first no more than possible,
that the ocean tide rises
according to the moon,
restless in her many moods.
Then she may feel the influence
and so meet the familiar unknown
when seen as shadows in the air,
when heard as silence in the sound.
 
How she rises sweetly singing
without fear of an ending.
How easily she may touch the moon.
Morning reveals the nearness of days
that know every word of her song
in the sky where she is walking
in pursuit of a world that is hers.
The words once heard are borne in mind
as far as the ear can hear the tread
of feet on earth, on heaven.

Geoffrey Heptonstall is the author of a novel, Heaven's Invention. Recent publications include poetry for Nine Muses, Optimum and Poetry Pacific, fiction for Fiction Week, essays for Fiction Southeast and Montreal Review. Based in Cambridge, England, teaching Creative Writing.