A Sestina for Jean

This poem in a very traditional format has gone through many re-writes, this version was completed just before a reading last night in The Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft.

To learn more about the structure of a Sestina click here

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The Moon quietly carves the soft Suffolk coast
moving each day the multi-coloured stones
dusting them with sand or leaving all exposed
in the endless change known as ‘long-shore drift’
a power known by those with their house in the sea
robbed by a tide that rose against their life.                  

The sounds of the shore enhances your life
for you have staked your claim by the coast
now rich with glass rubbed smooth by the sea.
Its wet voice whispers, in wave ratled stones
whose sibilance beguiles your thoughts to drift
to encompass all  friends whose pain is exposed.                        

The wind from the north reams all exposed
 just as sharply mischance can bite into life
for the want of a rudder a friend may drift
like flotsam at neap tides stands off from the coast.
So for each wreck-risk you seek a hag-stone
a power torus for fortune, pierced by the sea.                                           

When calm is required you are drawn to the sea
the beach your sanctuary  where wish is exposed
 without need of a building raised in hewn stones.
The sand-grains blown chorus sings of brief life
as it wafts up the beach of this east facing coast
but unlike a weak voice – your note doesn’t drift.                        

I was once seduced by the soft allure of drift
borne away by ideas that in lands across the sea
I would find experience, unknown within our coast.
Flattered by the chance for my skills to be exposed
I accepted a challenge in Northern Iran, a change in life
that weaned my false illusions as a ‘rolling stone.’                       

Daily an indifferent sun baked the desert stone
stark turquoise skies knew no kiss of cloud’s drift
the grey–brown dust clothed all forms of life.
River wadis stood ash dry, nothing moved towards the sea
in a desiccating task my frailities were exposed
instead of rich experience,   life began to coast.                          

Now I am anchored, a stone polished by the sea
you have snared my aimless drift, holding me exposed
to the rich strands of life on this ever changing coast.