Day 6:
Orpha
Beneath the tarnish, there are parts golden
That sometimes shimmer neath a near sunrise
Or glint like the grin of a Grandmother.
Sweeping you into the hug of her home.
Sometimes I surrender, and through the door
I slip, so that we can shine together.
Was this the first time I felt together?
Her shape was soft in a sea of golden
Honey streams spilling through an open door.
She is an angel robed by the sunrise,
Sunlit wings warm the twilight of her home.
And I, still dream-spun, see her. Grandmother.
Don't know how or why she is Grandmother.
Only know that when we are together,
Aside the weedy Chiefswood, I am home.
I'd never known such a morning, golden,
Woven of awakening and sunrise
And matriarchal magic at the door.
Drift like dust through starlight beams. To the door,
Gently, to the gleam of my grandmother.
In her hair and smile and eyes, the sunrise.
In word-less warmth we witness dawn together,
Cattails and ditch bouquets shining golden,
A billion birdsongs singing, "You are home."
Perhaps this is my first inkling of home?
Here we two sit before the latch-lock door,
Soaking up these sacred moments, golden
As a hug and buh from a grandmother.
Perhaps... does family mean together?
And might love be like a rez road sunrise?
Beneath the ash, still sparks that slow sunrise.
A constellation of embers leads me home
To a moment we made together
On the new side of an old faded door.
Decades stood between me and Grandmother
But those moments, we gleam sole and golden.
One long-gone sunrise we unlocked a door.
A girl found home beside her grandmother.
We still shine together somewhere golden.
ABOUT THIS POETRY FORM
A Sestina poem is a complicated French verse form.
It is a 39 line poem.
Rhymes: Doesn't usually rhyme
It has six, six line stanzas.
If finishes off with a three line stanza.
All stanzas have the same six words at the end of the lines, just in different sequences.
The last three lines have all six of the words in it, usually two of the words per line.
The basic layout is as follows, with each line representing a stanza, and each number representing the end word's position in that stanza.
1 2 3 4 5 6
6 1 5 2 4 3
3 6 4 1 2 5
5 3 2 6 1 4
4 5 1 3 6 2
2 4 6 5 3 1
(6 2) (1 4) (5 3)
It's complicated to think about. It's easier to see the pattern when you read a sestina.
And also, I found a sestina layout tool. You type in the 6 words you want to repeat. It arranges the words in the order they should appear in the poem. It saved me a lot of trouble.
Rena's Sestina End Word Generator: https://renajmosteirin.com/sestina.html
It took me a whole day, off and on, to write this. It was supposed to be done yesterday but we had an emergency situation and ended up sitting at BGH until 11:30 pm. Anyway, I just carried this poem form over to today and got it done. I'm not entirely sure it's done properly but here it is. My first, and possibly my last, sestina> It is based on one of my earliest childhood memories.
