Photograph of Priest's Cove, Cape Cornwall ©Alistair Common
Star
So we come full circle to falling dusk.
Above Priest's Cove, the sky is darkening
through Brisons rocks, evening hesitating
between clouds and sea, cautious, on the cusp.
A shard of motion slips through, blurred with regret,
fresh votive to this place, our penitence
for the lost: parents, old friends, and the house
we mourned as if a lover rashly left.
But the day has gone, its turning point passed.
Now the most beautiful of all the stars –
the evening star, shepherd star, Hesperus –
gathers all that light-tinged dawn has scattered;
it guides the fishing boats, herds in sailors,
sends daughters running home to their mothers.
This poem is from Letting Go (Agenda Editions, 2017). Lines 10-14 are based on Sappho fragments 104b & 104a. Jo's latest collection, Ghost Passage, was published this year.