(A Sestina)
I celebrate the rebirth of each spring,
and when I open up my garden shed,
I fondly look around my yard, a home
to birds and squirrels, a place where northern lights
have twirled and danced above the warming ground
and drops of gentle rain sing tap tap tap!
I love this season’s tango, waltz and tap
dance. Yes — the earth cavorts when flowers spring
from soil made rich with shells and coffee grounds,
and birds weave golden hair my dog has shed
into new nests, one snugged above the light
that pops on when the deer walk near my home.
A black bear roams the swamp that is a home
to maple trees; it steals the sap that flows from taps
while through the swamp and woods I lightly
step to watch the creek flow freely to the spring
and look for bones and white-tail sheds
that sometimes decorate these hunting grounds.
Here sandhill cranes with colts have stood their ground
when threatened by red foxes near their home.
Remembering tears of joy and awe I shed
when seeing this revives the vigor tapped
by winter’s cold and dark, and now since spring
has come, my old and weary heart feels light.
The hummingbirds have wings made out of light.
They arc and hover here while I am grounded
now by age; no longer with a vibrant spring
of step I walk toward that peaceful home
that waits beyond for all of us when tap
roots let us go and earthly coils are shed.
And when that great “Aha”, that watershed
of moments leads me toward a distant light,
and mournful bugler greets the night with “Taps,”
my life will parade before me in a ground-
swell of rich memories, as I, a homing
pigeon set my course and fly to endless spring.
The Lord God bird is tapping on my shed,
and wood shards spring, then fly, then light
upon the ground beneath its hollowed home.
Photo Courtesy: Daiga Ellaby, Unsplash
Joan Wiese Johannes
Judge’s notes:
"All That Matters Will Remain” works well in the difficult sestina form. I say 'difficult' not in the technical sense, meaning rather that it is a challenge to make good poems in the sestina pattern. This poem works because of its effective use of rhythm, the choice and variability of its keywords, and a subject that suits its cyclical form.