A Sestina

Thanks to June Swadron for introducing me to the sestina - a repeating style of verse. It is fun. I think I’ll try more. I could say I will do one a day for a month, but I don’t usually follow through on those kinds of promises to myself. I’ll just say I will do it again.

My first sestina:

I sit down to write
The wind whistles around the door
It comes in gusts, pushing it’s way
The seagulls wait for days like this
A chance to dive and rise again
I sit and wait – is it my time to soar?

Sometimes I do soar
Usually when I sit and write
Or when I connect with a friend again
How does it happen? this spirit that opens a door
To show me this
Here is the way.

I am impatient to find the way
Just take me to that place where I soar
How is it I get stuck like this
Stalling out on what to write
Unable to find the door
Surrounded by fog – again.

I sit down again
And take time to find a way
Scanning my soul for the door
to open – to let soar
And so I write
Another line – only this.

My pen moves writing this
Cherry picking words again
Letting them drop on the page as I write
Juggling them to place them in a new way
Releasing them in order to soar
Letting them make their way to the door.

The words stop at the door
And disappear through this
keyhole where they emerge to soar
Let loose again
Finding their own way
Onto the page where I write.

As I write I step through that door
My way appears through all of this
And so I know again – that I can soar.