by Daniel Jakopovich

in the forecourt of the vernal hollow
the dove of Agape caressed me
with wings of radiance

to the City of the vernal hollow
speak the sonnets of the Sea

Love meditates its streets
into a brilliant cascade
of the redemptive dawn

had it been a private embrace
I should have eschewed it;

no, it was of the Future,
of its universalism by which, millennia ago,
the last charred heart
of the last homeless pauper
was mercifully reborn,

whose Soul was watered with kindness and care
at which the yellow jasmine in the garden of Semiramis
would have blanched:

to this Kingdom of Love they were all
as singular as the Pharaoh in the pyramid

***

in the forecourt of the vernal hollow
the dove of Agape caressed me
with wings of radiance

to the City of the vernal hollow
speak the sonnets of the Sea

Daniel Jakopovich is a sociologist, philosopher, poet, and a campaigner for peace, human and animal liberation. He works as the Peace Lead for Quakers in Britain. His poetry has previously appeared in various literary journals, and in his own book Revolutionary Peacemaking: Writings for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence (2019, 527pp).