escaping the sky it falls cold
and lands on my earth in winter
although the truth is, it's merely water
there is something wonderful about rain
the way it invades, overtakes my hair
makes me miss christmas and home
last december i braved the weather to come home
somehow i seem to have forgotten the cold
my red nose, numb hands, mist in my hair
the calendar and the tv said it was winter
but it didn't seem real until the rain
and my life was overtaken--flooded with water
starving, i head to a restaurant, drink water.
scanning the menu, my mind wanders to home
and thoughts of you and the last time it rained
when we stood outside for hours never feeling cold
it must be that time, it has to be winter
here i am, lonely again, twirling my hair
let me run my fingers through your hair
your eyes are deep and grey like water
like the ocean in the middle of winter
i do not like this being apart, you at home
and me holding photos and feeling cold
maybe i'm not lonely, it's just the rain
i have always wanted to kiss someone in the rain
with the little droplets sliding down my hair
i stood in the rain today and only got cold
i wanted to cry but there was already enough water
my house was empty and not really a home
i always think about homeless people in winter
christmas comes to the world every winter
and here, it's always joined by the rain
they hold hands and sit above the lighted cheery homes
filled with babies and old men with no hair
the gutters fill with icy dirty murky water
it's not this weather that makes me cold
each day i walk home, take the pins from my hair
open the faucet, heat rains down, over my body, water
that washes away the proof of winter's cold
(please see posted comments for the editors' comments)
For those of you who are unfamiliar, Melissa is working within the confines of the sestina form. In this form, there are six stanzas of six lines each, and a concluding stanza of three lines. The trick is, the ending words of the lines in each stanza must be the same. You will notice that Melissa uses the same six ending words, in a different order, in each stanza. In the concluding stanza, each of the three lines contains two of the the end words from the previous six stanzas. For another example of a sestina, look back to Brian Maloney's "Chicago Sestina."
ReplyDeleteNow, moving on to what we like specifically about this poem; Melissa creates a moment that we both connected with in different ways. She adeptly navigates through a challenging form to build a fluid narrative. Melissa creatively plays with the time, smoothly moving between present day and memory to create a scene that is both nostalgic and desolate. She further develops this juxtaposition through the image of christmas holding hands with rain in the sixth stanza. The final stanza is key to the success of the poem, grounding it with a set of concrete images like "take the pins from my hair," which bring the reader into the very immediate moment, allowing us to relate to the speaker and find ourselves in the poem.
Also "little droplets sliding down my hair" is just so nice.
ReplyDeleteThe especially difficult part of a sestina is that the order of the ending lines is very structured, i.e., 123456, 615243, then 364125, then 532614, then 451362, and 246531. I'd like to keep playing with this form, it was certainly an adventure for this, my first attempt.
ReplyDeleteWoaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh I didn't even notice the structure, it was so natural...
ReplyDelete...and so vivid...
This is how I feel on rainy days.
Melissa, I have a question for you. Why did you choose to use no capitalization and little punctuation?
ReplyDelete