Louise Walker, ‘Octave/Sestet’

With each deep breath, the flute will utter prayer,
its voice vibrating with the purest note
of G in the first octave. Then you can float
up to the next because you know it’s there.
The painter knows how to balance sea and air,
concealing rules that have been learned by rote;
the same that give the poet secret hope
that all will be in order, nothing spare.

But look – the sunflower makes a perfect turn
with each new seed; at heart it knows the code
which gives each one sufficient space to grow,
facing the light. It never had to learn
to ask the question Fibonacci posed
of eight and six, the golden ratio.

*****

Louise Walker writes: “After 35 years of teaching English to 11–18-year-olds, I retired to have more time for writing,but I also started flute lessons. Learning my first instrument is fascinating, exhilarating and frustrating by turns; the experience has found its way into my poetry in unexpected ways.
In ‘Octave/Sestet’ I’m exploring the idea that there is a beauty in the proportions of the natural world, which finds its way into painting, architecture, the musical scale and the sonnet. I love the idea that we respond to this beauty instinctively, without conscious recognition of the maths – not my strongest subject, by any means!
Don Paterson’s introduction to his anthology ‘101 Sonnets’ was the final push to get me started on this poem. I often write sonnets, sometimes unrhymed, sometimes with slant rhyme, because I find the division into eight and six really helpful in developing my ideas. But here, I was faithful to the rhyme scheme and iambic pentameters of the Petrarchan sonnet. Recently, I’ve been trying forms such as triolets and terza rima, inspired perhaps by A.E. Stallings who I saw read in London last Spring.”

Louise Walker’s poems have appeared in anthologies by the Sycamore Press and Emma Press, as well as journals such as South, Oxford Magazine, Acumen, and Prole. She was Highly Commended in the Frosted Fire Firsts Award in 2022; in 2023 she was long-listed by The Alchemy Spoon Pamphlet Competition and won 3rd prize in the Ironbridge Poetry Competition. Commissions include Bampton Classical Opera and Gill Wing Jewellery for their showcase ‘Poetry in Ocean’. She is working on her first collection; at its core is her journey onwards from the sudden death of her brother in his/her twenties.
Instagram @louise_walker_poetry; direct message if you would like one of the last few
copies of her pamphlet ‘An Ordinary Miracle’.
‘Octave/Sestet’ was first published in Acumen; you can read a couple more sonnets here:
https://foxglovejournal.wordpress.com/2023/02/14/longwood-louise-walker/
https://acumen-poetry.co.uk/louise-walker/
and a prize-winning psalm:
https://pandemonialists.co.uk/ironbridge-poetry-competition-2023/

Photo: “Sunflower” by auntiepauline is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.