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How (Not) to Write a Sestina
Of all the structures we labour to conceal
(yes, that should suffice for an opening line)
the one perhaps most treacherous to handle
is that old thirty-niner, the sestina:
it has been the undoing of many a fine poet
otherwise superb at avoiding the obvious.
Well, let’s examine this notion, ‘the obvious’
(that was a case of exposing to conceal).
First of all, the more finicky the poet,
the greater the agony to make certain each line
of each stanza of that putative sestina,
and every closure, will open like a handle
into the next – so yes, we turn the handle
(since to turn it seems fitting and obvious)
and enter, innocent, those Pillars of Sestina
all the stained-glass ikons are looming to conceal,
as we proceed open-mouthed down the line
of columns and catafalques like a drugged poet;
a poet replete with reverence, transfigured poet
(whose suggestibility is thus safer to handle),
all our linear perspectives falling into line.
Second, and a point that ought to be obvious,
those six leit-echoes, in order to conceal
themselves, must not make us yell out ‘Sestina!’
as soon as the first one happens, ‘Look, sestina!’
(that was both irony and cheek: I’m a cheeky poet);
so the words should be somewhat escapable, to conceal
their persistence: contrast hippo with handle!
Third, canny distractions both arcane and obvious,
like felonious homophones that don’t quite align,
can be used, or the parenthetic slotting of a line
(like the ones I’ve smuggled into this sestina)
which recurs for some reason other than obvious.
Above all, it’s suicide for the unsuspecting poet
to lock himself into a maze he can neither handle
– or herself/she – nor shed, squirming to conceal
line after line (desperate to finish), a sinking poet
in a quicksand of sestina, at a loss how to handle
the envoi, the ending, the agony too obvious to conceal.
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Shearwaters Returning
Ocean Beach, Tasmania
Silent as searchlights
the muttonbirds are circling
in the crystal dusk.
They’ve arrived at last,
ghost aviators swooping
the hills and tussocks.
For ten thousand miles
they have journeyed to this coast
from Arctic seas.
Each knows exactly
the clump where its fledglings brood
hungry, newly hatched.
We touch mystery here,
a timeless majesty—
a shiver from the fading horizon.
When they leave again
their youngsters will grow thinner,
watch new feathers sprout.
Wade into the light
and lift into ancient flightpaths
mapped on the skyline.
To track the Ocean
up to the Aleutian isles,
mystified by us.
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