Tuesday 4 December 2012

Continental Drift

I tried my hand at a sestina...


I suppose you call this time fall.
It’s always autumn to me. Your alien mind
likes to speak in a distorted tongue.
And when we see the spinning leaves
drifting down an eggshell sky
I catch oak, and your hands are empty.

There half the houses stand empty,
you say as you watch rain fall.
There the world is bigger than the sky,
with room for my restless mind.
I know you pine for maple leaves,
for bittersweet syrup on your tongue.

The words are waiting to leave your tongue.
This land is small and your heart is empty.
That’s why everyone ups and leaves.
This place is paradise after the fall,
There you can be naked. No one would mind,
no one would see you bare yourself to the sky.

Through the window is my perfect sky,
the places that come easy to my tongue,
If we left maybe no one would mind
but me, I say. But if your land is empty
who would catch me in your wondrous fall?
If your land is perfect, what fool leaves?

One day I will weave from leaves
a tapestry of your autumn sky.
We’ll go where poplar and maple leaves fall,
where every red and amber seems a tongue
of flame, and where the world is empty
and gives space to your fragile mind.

Perhaps after a time I would not mind
my future in a place where everyone leaves
but you and me, where the world stands empty
but for us. I’d give you my entire Eastern sky.
Words slip easily from your honeyed tongue
and I think, after all, that I may fall.

I cannot mind your perfect pale blue sky,
your autumn leaves, your ever altered tongue,
You make me fall. With you, I am not empty.

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