I’m not even going to try to understand the sestina. For crying out loud, what a show that thing is. Even Tania Runyan thinks so. “They’re kinda nuts,” she writes in How to Write A Form Poem: A Guided Tour of 10 Fabulous Forms.
I skipped right over all that teleuton talk in Runyan’s “I Sestina the Light,” chapter and went right to the poems. That’s when the real trouble began.
I felt the sway of Elizabeth Bishop’s six repeated end-words before I understood that was part of the form. The words house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac, and tears, grounded me in the poem. I was there in the kitchen with a whistling tea kettle on a stormy night.
I thought of my own grandma, who would make a pot of Turkish coffee after dinner. She served it in little coffee cups because we only needed a little bit. Turkish coffee, especially after dinner, will keep you up until this pandemic is over.
What she poured was sweet and strong and just enough for us to tell a bold story or two. Many we’d told and heard before, but something about the repetition makes one see more, don’t you think?
I flipped back to the diagram of the spiral and all the numbers a couple of pages back to see if I could understand how the sestina works. I guess Elizabeth Bishop and my grandma were lulling me into a state of submission.
What happened is I looked at the spiral and at the numbers, got dizzy and went downstairs to get some chocolate.
This is going to sound strange, but chocolate is not easy for me to eat. Put a bag of any kind of gummy candy in front of me, and it’ll be gone. Fast. I’ll also feel rather sick, like one giant piece of sticky gelatin.
Chocolate takes awhile for me to appreciate, especially the kind Jesse buys. He likes the dark stuff, and I’m always surprised how much flavor one square holds. It’s distinctly tangy and subtly sweet and tart all at once. I don’t thoughtlessly snack on dark chocolate, and so maybe I needed the physical grappling (albeit tasty grappling) to help me with the mental wrestling of the sestina.
It was the chocolate paired with Runyan’s story of climbing the spiral staircase of a lighthouse that eased me back into looking at the pattern of the sestina again. She writes that she’s no fan of heights, but that “the process of going up a spiral staircase was so deliberate and controlled … [she] didn’t even notice [she] was quickly reaching the top of a tower.”
I liked the words “deliberate” and “controlled.” I liked thinking about taking one step — and focusing only on that one step — instead of concerning myself with exactly where I’m going.
It reminded me of taking Hadley to the doctor when she was an infant. Those first several weeks were filled with appointments, for me and for her, and I was scared all the time. I was scared to breastfeed. I was scared not to breastfeed. Scared that Hadley would never gain neck strength because I wasn’t giving her enough tummy time. Scared I’d never sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time again. I was scared for the future: Would she make friends? Would she have the problems in school that I had? What will I do if she does?
The phrase, “spiraling out of control” comes to mind, and it may seem accurate, but because she’s a poet, Runyan does what poets do best and challenges the meaning of the phrase:
When we say we’re ‘spiraling out of control,’ we’re not quite accurate. A spiral is in control. Merriam-Webster puts it this way: ‘the path of a point in a plane moving around a central point while continuously receding from or approaching it.’ That seems pretty calm and consistent, if you ask me.”
I agree. And while I didn’t have to climb a spiral staircase for any of Hadley’s visits, Runyan’s twist on the meaning here reminds me how calming it was to focus on one step at a time while holding my brand new baby. All I had to do was take one step. I could do that. All I had to do was hold Hadley. I could do that too.
I am a worrier. A ruminator. It’s part of my makeup, and most of the time, I can embrace it. I have found ways to accept and create with the darker parts of myself. Since the pandemic, though, I’ve begun to realize that there are periods when I suffer from my thoughts.
Shakespeare always does it better, so I’ll use him to help me with what I mean. In Richard II, Bushy, one of King Richard’s friends, tells the Queen, regarding her worrying: “For sorrow’s eyes, glazed with blinding tears, / Divides one thing entire to many objects, / Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon / Show nothing but confusion.”
This is what I do. I can be hurt, angry, and sad, and I can take those feelings and divide them like gremlins until I’m paralyzed by what I’ve dreamed up.
So I was comforted reading how the sestina helped Runyan. She writes of a habit she had that took over parts of her life. She eventually stopped it, but then found that her “brain had no place to go.”
She began writing sestinas. Runyan writes this:
Without a doubt, the poems gave my brain a place to go. My anxious synapses latched onto the spiraling patterns like barnacles on a sea turtle.”
Runyan’s decision to work the sestina reminds me of what happens to me when I read Shakespeare. Every morning this year I have spent my first waking hour with one of his plays, and while I don’t understand much of what he writes, copying down words I love or that strike me, whispering the rhythm of the lines, delving into the story and the characters and how they resonate with me is the time I am at my most calm and content. Language gives my brain a break. Words soothe me.
I’ve been staring at the directions of the sestina for weeks now, and I still don’t think I understand it, but I also can’t stop thinking of my grandma’s Turkish coffee, and the stories we’d tell each other—so well worn, and yet in which we still found something lovely about the telling. So I think I’ll return.
The chocolate is gone. I’m ready to climb the spiral staircase.
Try It
How about writing a sestina this week? Runyan offers a rich and playful explanation of the form as well as great ideas for giving it a try. If writing seems like too much, it’s also fun to study the sestina. I’ve been working through Marjorie Maddox’s “Fishing for Sestinas” in an effort to find that spiral staircase.
And if you don’t have a copy of Runyan’s book (yet), check out some of these resources from TSP on writing the sestina:
My Sestina is a Space Six-Shooter
Featured Poem:
Thank you to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s one from Megan Willome we enjoyed.
Baylor Ghazal
Winning was out of the question, still I wore my lucky shirt.
Never liked it but I chose caution: a lucky shirt.
At the church’s chili cook-off we won season tickets
at the silent auction. At games, wore matching lucky shirts.
In 1950 players shot underhanded buckets. Got to the Big Dance
through sheer importune but lost their lucky shirts.
He walked down the interstate, away from the school he loved,
gone, gone with his sole possession, a lucky shirt.
A death. A lie. Rumors. New coach installs JOY: Jesus, Others, You.
Good God. We paid no attention. Just some lucky shirt.
The table was set green and gold but she was gone.
The note left—pure torture. I almost burned my lucky shirt.
Everyone thinks it could never happen to them. They would never
fall into such distortion. You and your stupid lucky shirts.
We were like those who dreamed when the Lord
restored the fortunes of Zion. It wasn’t the lucky shirts.
By the river we sat and wept and fed the ducks and remembered
what had been our portion. Didn’t realize we had on lucky shirts.
Out, damned spot! Out, I say! What, will these hands ne’er be clean?
It gives me indigestion, this spot stuck fast to my lucky shirt.
The last living player from the last good team watched the big game.
God’s man in foreign lands—he had no need for a lucky shirt.
In the spot where all was lost, they held a ceremony,
planted an orchard. Around each new tree, wrapped a lucky shirt.
The day after the win, people clapped when I entered,
as if I were some new creation, wearing the same ol’ lucky shirt.
Alone, the mother flies the Baylor flag, too stunned for words—
this redemption. Folds away her lucky shirt.
Photo by Tabako The Jaguar Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Callie Feyen.
Browse more poetry prompts
I have been a fan of Callie Feyen’s writing for quite some time but I finished this book in almost one sitting. If you have ever been in 8th grade, fallen in love, had a best friend, or loved reading, you will love this book. As the mother of an 8th grader, my other genuine hope is that my son will one day have a teacher as gifted as Callie.
—Celena Roldan
- Poetry Prompt: Courage to Follow - July 24, 2023
- Poetry Prompt: Being a Pilgrim and a Martha Stewart Homemaker - July 10, 2023
- Poetry Prompt: Monarch Butterfly’s Wildflower - June 19, 2023
Tania Runyan says
You CLIMB that staircase, girl! I believe in you! And the sestina is so complex, it’s often better to just jump right in and understand it subconsciously through the process of writing. It’s magic; it really is.
Callie Feyen says
Thank you, Tania. I did find sestinas I’ve read in the past that I love, but didn’t realize I was reading a sestina. I wonder if loving them is the beginning to understand them subconsciously.
Very much enjoying your new book. Thank you for writing it.
Crystal Rowe says
“It’s magic” – IT IS! I found its complexity to be a gift in some ways. There’s lots of room for exploring emotion and imagery and it’s just my new favorite form.
Megan Willome says
Since Tania gave us the example of an ode in the form of a sonnet, Ron Wallace’s “Mrs. Goldwasser,” I decided to try an ode disguised as a sestina.
Ode to my Heart Book
a sestina
Where are you? Norway, always Norway.
No, not now—Norway in the Middle Ages.
1,124 pages and more than forty audio hours of sinners
And saints.
Flowers fill the mountain pastures—fireweed.
She is in my neurons, my marrow, Kristin.
On my walks, reading before bed: Kristin.
On my bathroom shelf: a tchotchke resembling Norway.
Any unknown weed in my yard? Must be fireweed.
Is this what happens when you reach middle age?
Drained from seeking to be a saint
I snuggle with my favorite sinner.
More passions than outright sins
(Usually). She does have blood on her hands, Kristin.
Should she follow Brother Edvin, monk turned saint?
Should she flee to Sweden, leave her beloved Norway?
Travel took so long in the Middle Ages—
You had to wait till it was warm enough for fireweed.
It blossoms after fire: fireweed,
Covers the cracks and burned spots of sin.
It had healing power in the Middle Ages.
Spread its red tassles and gold seeds, like Kristin.
The invasive weed of Northern Norway,
feeding reindeer. Its appearance almost saintly.
I can no longer find a saint
I wish to emulate. Give me fireweed:
The cuckoo’s arrow. Give me Norway.
Give me a woman grieved by sin
Who never stops sinning. Give me Kristin.
Settle me in her Middle Ages.
I found her story in my own middle age.
I’ve read it six times. Does that make me a saint?
Started my seventh time through. Kristin, Kristin, Kristin.
If my life came down to one night, would I become fireweed?
Would I heed Fru Aashild, that witch, that old sinner?
Would I oppose Hel for the sake of Norway?
In the Middle Ages, elves and trolls hid near fireweed.
The unseen world of sinners and the unseen world of saints
rested side by side for Kristin, for me, so far from Norway.
Callie Feyen says
KRISTIN!!!!!
Goodness, I love this book.
Yes, indeed. Give me Kristin.
L.L. Barkat says
Oh gosh, I love this. A sestina-ode for Kristin. Yes, yes, yes!
Tania Runyan says
Megan, this sestina-ode is amazing! I’m so excited to see you writing in all these different forms!
Jillian Hughes says
I had so much fun experimenting with the sestina!
I’ve been wanting to write about my brother and his autism for awhile. This form provided the perfect structure to express myself and my complicated emotions.
Never Broken
20 months and a thousand broken
neural pathways are all that separate
me and you. A pair of wringing hands,
a broken heart, a mismatched brain.
We all wanted to solve your puzzle,
put your pieces back together.
Did we do enough, when we were together?
Did you feel lost? Did you feel broken?
Like some sick kind of riddle? An unsolvable puzzle?
Or were you always able to separate
heart from head, soul from brain?
Was our love sturdy? Could you hold it in your hands?
Was it too heavy? Too hot? Make you yank back your hands?
Were you sick of holding our hopes together?
I hope you found solace in the corners of your brain.
Maybe we were always the ones that were broken.
What God has joined together, no man should separate.
Maybe you were always a poem, never a puzzle.
Maybe I ask too many questions, I’m too hung up on puzzles.
I should focus on things I can hold in my hands,
Things I can’t easily break or separate.
Like me and you. Siblings. Forever together.
A bond that can never, ever be broken.
A bond forged by heart, not by brain.
I hope you know I love your brain.
It makes me wonder, gives me pause, makes me puzzle.
Teaches me how to honor the beauty in the broken.
The bruised fruit, the lined hands.
Don’t you love how wisdom and struggle are always together?
A pair of tangled threads that refuse to separate.
I’m still learning how to separate
The truth in my bones from the knowledge in my brain.
All of it blurry, muddled together.
Like some kind of thousand piece puzzle.
Isn’t the answer written all over your hands?
Does it break your heart to know we’re all broken?
I refuse to separate the pieces of your puzzle.
I’ll honor your brain by holding your hand.
If we are together, we will never be broken.
L.L. Barkat says
Ooo. The perfect form for this. So tender and beautiful.
Thanks for opening your heart and words, Jillian, in the lines of this sestina.
Jillian Hughes says
Thank you! I had a great time experimenting with this new form.
Callie Feyen says
“Maybe you were always a poem, never a puzzle.” I love that.
I was so caught up in the emotion of the poem, I didn’t even notice the “rule” of the sestina. The words all fall perfectly. Well done, Jillian. I also think it is wonderful that you found a form to fit the story you are trying to tell. What a perfect fit.
Tania Runyan says
Jillian, this sestina is powerful. The line “Maybe you were always a poem, never a puzzle” is everything.
Crystal says
This was daunting and yet also very emotionally healing for me. Here’s my attempt at Sestina:
Missing Person
He is a missing person away from home.
Staying out late ev’ry night, seeking freedom
from the emotions he’s been taught to silence.
Insecurity deprives him of the peace
that could fill his heart if he’s willing to love
his fam’ly with every fiber of his being.
No one told him being a dad meant being
vulnerable with the people in his home.
No one told him that enthusiastic love
could be the one thing that finally set him free.
No one told him the way to find inward peace
doesn’t come from everyone being silent.
Instead, his rage taught her to hide silently
in her room if she wanted the house to be
without caterwauling; a calm place of peace.
She could never truly be present at home
when he was there. She was never fully free
to speak her mind or embrace the things she loved.
She grew up thinking it was hard work to love;
that loving someone meant a life of silence.
Her dad taught her the only way to be free
from his wrath was her pretending not to be.
He was hardly there, but when he was at home,
she thought her silence would help him be at peace.
Always wondering if she would have a piece
of his heart, she often longed to feel his love.
One day when she was ten, her mom brought her home
to her dad sitting on the couch in silence,
waiting for his chance to tell her that being
her dad was something he wanted to be free
to try once again. Would she grant him freedom?
Could she forgive him and move forward in peace?
She nodded slowly; fear kept her from being
honest with him. He never expressed his love
for her before; why would he stop his silence
now? Nothing changed; he still stayed away from home.
Only when he left home for good was she free.
No longer silent, but still yearning for peace,
she would screw up love before she learned to be.
L.L. Barkat says
Hard stuff, Crystal. Still…
how do I love this. Let me count the ways.
(Thank you for writing and sharing.)
Crystal Rowe says
Oh L.L., thank you! It is such hard stuff, and yet to turn it into a thing of beauty feels like such redemption.
L.L. Barkat says
I’m sorry for the hard parts, truly, Crystal.
Yes, beauty-making with what otherwise stays as only pain feels like redemption to me, too.
Callie Feyen says
This reads like a story, and I am thinking of the plot structure for “the hero’s journey.” This is a glimpse of the backstory before the girl’s story begins. I love this. Great work, Crystal.
Crystal Rowe says
Yes-it is part of the backstory, and it was really really fun to work with it in this way. Maybe I’ll just make the whole journey sestina. 😂
Tania Runyan says
Crystal, the sestina form makes your truth, painful as it is, sing. I can really relate to this poem.
Alyssa Silvester says
This was difficult and fun. I had so many emotions this week thinking about my oldest turning 2 and reflecting on what it was like to celebrate his first birthday amidst COVID and my husband’s deployment. I decided sestinas are art + science, creativity + control.
Parenting Doesn’t Come With a Template
Time runs and time whirls; I twirl and already my son
is turning two. He is never stand-still, always excited,
filled with life, like air in balloons at his party.
Celebrate big! His favorite things! I search PBS for templates
of “Daniel Tiger”. Over three years ago we were planning,
praying, trying, and hoping to become parents.
My c-section scar quickly made it apparent
I’m less in control than I think. Despite my perception, my son
isn’t my puppet. I try my best but really my planning
is to love and to pray and to raise up my boy excited
to live in God’s beautiful world. Parenting comes with no templates.
And so? We mark goodness, scars and all, with a party!
In 2020 his first birthday came just after our parting
with Dada, deployed to fight COVID. FaceTime with grandparents,
balloons on the fence, an untouched smash cake on a plate
would have to be enough to celebrate my son.
If I could turn back time, I’d self-whisper Sweet mama, be excited,
the pendulum is swinging. I didn’t know what friends were planning.
I awoke to birthday lawn art a fellow military mom was planning
and my crockpot dinner stopped for our own car parade party.
Surprises unwound; I unraveled overwhelm and excitement.
Horns ring in my ears, tears stay in my eyes, their love so apparent.
Even a year later, I still feel the warmth of the sun,
and their love for us I continue to contemplate.
If I could design and eat control, served up on a plate
would I? I could not have imagined all the love they were planning
if I tried to orchestrate the celebration of my one year old son.
But 2020 – COVID, deployment, division, hate – has been no party.
Fast forward to 2021, all I can be is transparent
that today I acknowledge God’s faithfulness. I’m a balloon, I’m excited
to celebrate my sweet boy with family and friends. Our home is excited
to be filled to bursting; we will eat sprinkle cake off “Daniel Tiger” plates.
My heart tick tocks; I cannot believe the love and that I get to be his parent.
Three, two, one year ago I could not fathom that all of my planning
would not be a straight line to this two year old, this life, and this party.
He is a bright sun, he brings life to everything he touches, my son.
As the days spin by, as a parent, I declare to raise a son
who believes in planning but will also let himself be excited
to see that God isn’t a template and that love in life makes it a party.
L.L. Barkat says
The difficulty paid off! This really plumbs the year in a way that I’m guessing a free verse poem might not have provided occasion for.
So glad you tried it, Alyssa. So glad you shared. (And? Really nice switch-up of end words along the way, “parent” “apparent” “transparent”… )
🙂
Alyssa Silvester says
Thank you, L.L.! It really was the perfect form to play around in, and you’re right it gave my thoughts structure in a way that free verse doesn’t always. I had fun thinking of iterations of words that sound similar, made me really applaud the 12th century French troubadours who would write these on the fly…
Callie Feyen says
I like the question you ask: “If I could design and eat control, served up on a plate,/would I?” It captures nicely the volley you are playing with between what we imagine motherhood to be, and what it is.
But it’s also set against the backdrop of COVID, a father being deployed, and the BLM movement, so you’ve written your specific experience in a universal setting.
Finally, the sestina has a musical quality to it as I read. Words like, “twirl,” “orchestrate,” and “spin” give a melodic quality to the poem, which suggests the need and desire for dancing, even as we grapple.
Tania Runyan says
Great sestina, Alyssa, and I love how the envoi comes together!
Kim Knowle-Zeller says
This was fun to look back to an essay I’m still sitting with and using it as a base for the sestina!
She looks down and wonders: are these really her hands?
No, it can’t be. They look like they should belong to her mother
they’re dry and cracked, with a broken nail, and faded polish to show
how much her hands have seen and done, what they’ve carried, how they work.
She feels a tug on her fingers, warmth envelops her from her daughter
now all she sees in her hands is love.
What is this love?
Found in her hands
once she was only a daughter
now she can be called a mother
who carries, cuts, picks up, cleans, rubs, and holds; always full of work
her hands have rubbed, massaged, bandaged, and loved; this is what they show.
She wants to use her hands for good, to show
her daughter what it is to love
with hands that extend to neighbors, hands that work
for justice, offering peace, feeding, and picking up broken pieces of hope, hands
that embrace like a mother
caring for the world as she does her daughter.
She whispers over and over, “You are loved,” to her daughter
hoping, too, that the words will take root in herself and show
what it is to be free, full of light and joy, but as a mother
she feels weighed down by all the love
by everything that she holds in her hands
she wonders, did her mother feel this way too? Held down by her work.
What is a mother’s work?
To walk through each day remembering our first name, daughter
to look up and see the vast sky and open our hands
receiving the gift of this life, this moment, to show
the world there is no height too high for a mother’s love
to reach and be reached by all those who have gone before and claimed the name mother.
On the days when the work feels too heavy, she thinks about those mothers
whose hands now reach out to grandchildren, read stories, and bake cookies as their work
welcoming their energy, sticky fingers, and dirt-filled shoes with love.
She watches her mother and gives thanks that she is her daughter
held by the same hands that now hold grandchildren and show
how beautiful it is to embrace what we’ve been given with open hands.
She now looks at all this love given to her as a mother.
With hands that have aged with dryness and bruises, showing the depth of her work.
She is a daughter, a mother, fully loved. She looks at her hands, and this is what they show.
Katie says
Kim,
Thank you for sharing this ode/sestina to motherhood. It has offered me an opportunity for some healthy reflection on my days as a mom, my current challenges in “mothering” my aging mom of 95, and my joys of being a nana to my grands.
Gratefully,
Katie
Kim Knowle-Zeller says
Thank you, Katie, for your words. As I wrote this sestina I kept picturing my mom and my daughter. Peace to you as you mother in so many ways.
Tania Runyan says
Beautiful job, Kim. The end words themselves encapsulate motherhood.
L.L. Barkat says
This.
I do love how the shifting cycle of the sestina fits right with the round and round of motherhood and daughterhood.
Thank you for sharing, Kim. 🙂
Kim Knowle-Zeller says
Thank you! Round and round is such a good way to think about being a mother and a daughter. I’m learning so much in each vocation from the other. Glad to be able to share in this space!
Lindsey Cornett says
Here’s my attempt! This was a challenge, for sure, and I almost gave up. Glad to have pushed through, though!
“How long will it take to get my pre-baby body back?
How far am I willing to go? How much am I willing to push?”
Pre-baby, the world tried to destroy my connection
to my embodied self with its narrow definition of strength:
The stopwatch ticks, the heart pumps, weights lift, muscles grow.
What did that have to do with me? What need did I have of this body–
uncoordinated, unathletic, unwelcome, immodest body?
Everything taught me to hold my curving frame back.
Call a girl “flesh,” make her a bearer of sin, and watch how shame will grow.
I thought virtue would protect me, but the boys knew how to push.
I was left believing I did not possess the necessary strength,
and I didn’t know to search for a misplaced body-mind connection.
But later–labor. Baby, womb, cord, blood, contractions–connection.
When the time came to deliver my boy with my own body,
I bore down and accessed dormant strength.
I emptied my lungs with a wail, and my muscles answered back.
The doctor whispered to the nurse, “This woman knows how to push.”
Did she know I needed to hear it? Did she see how I needed to grow?
There were lies about weakness I needed to outgrow,
and in that moment, she helped me make the connection.
Even when depression began to push
darkness down upon my postpartum mind, my body
took her turn to stand up tall. I’d think back,
and remind myself how the doctor saw my strength.
I learned to open all the way up, to feel the strength
of mind and heart and let it fortify my body. The two grow
together, in concert and cooperation. I found my way back
to joy, to hope, and even to connection.
Motherhood delivered me to my body.
I awoke to the knowledge of how to push.
I suppose this it what it meant to heal–to push
deeper inside the breaking until emerging into strength.
To pay attention and then to trust my body,
to hold her in love and allow her to grow
slowly back toward connection.
I mothered, and I mothered myself, and I found my way back.
The push and pull of motherhood is what helped me grow,
what forged in flame a body and soul connection.
I never want my pre-baby body back.
Tania Runyan says
Stunning sestina. And yes, glad you “pushed”!
Laura Rennie says
Last week I wrote a one-page essay about my daughter’s birthday balloon and the rainbows it created in our foyer. I went through it and circled six words, which become the starting point for this piece. Writing a sestina felt like pulling teeth at times, but it was incredibly rewarding to place another piece of the puzzle and feel it “click.”
Balloon Ballet
I wake to the glow of soft morning light,
make my way to the table where I sit down to write.
My pen invites my sleepy fingers to dance,
to search inside and out for a story to create.
I stare out the window and watch the sun
rise triumphantly like a liberated balloon.
Eyes on the sky, I almost don’t notice the balloon
from the party. It floats in our foyer, catching the light
penetrating through the glass. Brilliant sun
rays reach across the sky, blinding me as I write.
I blink my eyes, stretch my neck, rack my mind to create,
insecure as a wallflower in my clumsy writing dance.
I let myself become distracted, enchanted by the dance
in front of me. I observe the bobbing balloon,
the way its bright colors create
rainbows, reflections born out of light.
I could sit here for hours, watching this scene right
in front of my eyes, choreographed by the sun.
I want to reach out and grab hold of the sun,
abandon my pen partner, try out a new dance.
The page before me is blank; I can’t write.
Let me join the company of the ballon
ballet, let me leap in the glimmering light.
Leave my body on the chair, my soul longs to create.
Will it ever pass — this push and pull to create?
Will I spend the rest of my days rising with the sun,
sitting at the window, languishing in its light?
Am I destined to be caught in a never-ending dance?
My brain feels like a deflated balloon.
I spend all my energy trying to think of what to write.
Still, there is beauty in this morning rite,
a humble offering of words, a creation
all of my own. I breathe in, a balloon
of hope rises in me just like the sun
outside my window. Ideas dance
in my head. I search for delight.
And so I’ll write about the morning sun,
to remember how its rays once created colors that danced
with a balloon — my own aurora borealis of light.
Tania Runyan says
Laura, this sestina dances and shines like the balloon that inspired it. Bravo!