Window Pane Sestina

 

Caught in the glass of the window pane, the transparent plein air view on paper

navigates the labyrinth of doors inside and outside the garden of swirling words

undefined on twisted branches taking form. The naturalist sketch  

of doves, a chiaroscuro composed on long ribbon limbs of love

linked rays of transient light to the kaleidoscope. Two miles ago her navy blue

coat cinched tight over her yellow breast of song because the weight of the sky clipped her soaring.

 

But, she believed she could, even when the letters and postcards from him and her and them,

became forgotten silhouettes stretched out far across the perimeter of pallid paper

connecting life cycles. The scattered ashes and indigo ink smeared in blue

became the dark soul stuff, that no one even knew about. She was too polite and cautious to

 hang the scarlet notes in the orchard, but picked their buds anyway. The shoots of love,

still forming, were piled on to blankets. She never intended them to rot in the blazing summer sketch.

 

Compressed thoughts, from so long ago, were titillated by future stars lain like landing spots in distant sketches

stacked and smeared with nectar, to sticky to unfold in her tiny pocket, where she sewed the soaring

seeds of dreams later scattered and hung like crisp antebellum linen dried upon the line of love

that no man she should cross- or woman or child. In the meantime, planked stars balance out on paper,

but slicing them apart would produce half as much pleasure. Or she could just enjoy the dainty words

one by one and tell the airy breathe all about it beneath the canopy of blue.

 

Discovering the sacred geometry leading white stairs, reminded her of cyanotype blue

paper capturing the knothole in the weather wood she stood upon as a child. The airy sketch

exposed molecules and dandelion day dreams, but they were really only strips of words

that she could fit together. The fragments of failure were never complete flops, but soaring

compositions of trees stretched from limb to limb to limb, across the great grand sailcloth paper

boats she floated until the rain stopped. Behind the pane of glass, looking back, she felt all the love.

 

And this is what they call the sunken treasures- kite strings still bound to the day of love.

She remembered how he roared like a lion and how she took that navy blue

coat and cinched it up for good. Of course they were all pastiche stories, tumbling over onto fresh paper

like dried lavender from the harvest, she absorbed what wasn’t scraps because what is being sketched

right now matters. Still, all the musings and snapshots of her whole life live on in a fire of burning blue

flames ignited in the love of herself, not necessarily others, but some joined in a song of glorious rhythmic words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The war cannons beseech our labors because the pleasantries of conversation are never enough words

to digest the trepidation. But what is deep beneath the seminal friendships of love?

The capitalists could never scope out the germination at play that the singing doves soaring

find woven into the felicitous nature. We are never in the same place at one time because blue

is not stark white canvas. Even a penciled botanist study still prodcues a sketch

with variations of season, baring the prismatic universe on time stamped paper.

 

In the end, she was soaring because she believed in the beaming words,

blinking like a beacon past the contraband of pirates and their mistaken love,

filling in all the bursts and blotted out pages she had once torn, leaving only a stack of clean crisp paper.

-Dr. Brantley's writing class taught us about these sestinas. They were so fun. I have to admit she helped me a lot with editing. I really loved being in her class. She was always very open and real with us as students. I miss poetry days already.