Sestina
September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.
She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,
It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac
on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.
It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.
But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.
Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.
~Elizabeth Bishop
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This poem has always been one of my favorites. It strikes the note of a rainy afternoon just so: slightly melancholy yet sort of homey. This particular poem happens to be named after its form. A sestina is a highly structured poem made up of six six-line stanzas, followed by a three-lined stanza (called a tercet). Each line must finish with the same six words yet shuffle their order every time. Bishop makes it look effortless but writing a sestina is a bitch. Um, I mean it separates the artists from the amateurs. I tried to write one once. Total bloodbath.
The trick is to use the precise structure to open up meaning rather than stifle it. It would be so easy to turn a sestina into an exercise in rigidity and sacrifice of content. Instead form becomes the container into which the poem is poured.
We think the structure is imposing limitation but what it's really doing is inviting us to open up in a particular way, to unfold into a distinct kind of experience.
Consider dharana, dhyana and samadhi. Sometimes known as the concluding limbs of Patanjali's yoga. Or, if you're thinking like a tantrika it's like this: the sestina is the dharana or structure. The words you choose are the dhyana. The samadhi is the way the poem makes you feel.
or
Asana = dharana, a container or cup
Consciousness & breath = dhyana, what you pour into the cup.
The experience you have = samadhi, sipping from the cup.
or
Can.
Red Bull.
Buzz.
