Lullaby: A Sestina

[PalePower]

Wrote this in Creative Writing last year (sadly. . . the last poem I've written because I've been so busy - blech). I'd have to say it was crazy fun because of the challenge of sticking to the structure: six stanzas of six lines each, a seventh stanza of three; you're also only allowed to use six words to rhyme throughout the entire piece and they must be used (as much as possible) in different meaning and different order. FUN.

Lullaby: a Sestina

The day is spent, so get you now to bed

As quick as all the sparrows in their flight!

And I will coo you, “Rest your weary head”

Until you lie acquainted with the night.

I’ll watch the furrowed strain from your face shed,

And softly as your breath, turn out the light.

For now you bask in unfamiliar light

That glows only when locked inside your bed.

And, sleeper sunken, captive of the night,

I dare not shake the wonders in your head.

For should you soar in tips’ly reeling flight,

What right is it of mine to feathers shed?

So as you slip still further, care not to shed

The cold restraints that live within the light –

And while cherishing not supreme your sacred bed,

Forget it not: the energy of night

That can be found alone within your head –

For one must take one’s rest before one’s flight.

And never scramble ’fore the dawn in flight,

Fearing that your liberty you’ll shed -

But welcome all the blatancy of light

Because it shows the smallness of your bed.

For when you lie in raptures with the night,

’Tis dreams of day that swirl inside your head.

The cold will come, the birds will southward head,

But knowing temporary is their flight:

Thus shall you clamber warmly to your bed

When winter claims the vibrancy of light;

Thus shall you blanket don and uniform shed,

Still knowing temporary is the night.

And days will grow and shorten – so will night –

So furnish both abodes within your head.

Urge them neither to a zestful flight;

Bid them not to any glory shed –

But keep your equilibrium with light

A little stronger than with that of bed.

But rest now, for the now is truly night,

And all my words are spun and sung and shed,

So softly, will I rise and black the light.

~Elizabeth Nonemaker ©2006

[Danneskjold]

That's good. Real good. I don't think I could write a whole poem like that, let alone only using the same two rhymes.