First Sestina

Sestina

Every day I'd visit the sundial

Just before the evening

But when I returned to the hallway

It felt like I'd been to church

Or to a sacred grove;

The light was violet.

Once you gave me a violet

As we sat by the sundial

Next to that woody grove

As we waited for the evening

Before going to church

And returning to that narrow hallway.

But what happened in that hallway?

All my memories are tinged in violet.

It's as if I'd gone to church

And woken up by the sundial

With the soft light of the evening
Falling over the grove.

Did I meet you in the grove?

Did you lead me to the hallway?

Were we together that evening,

When all around was violet,

Except for the starkness of the sundial

And the looming of the church?

Sometimes now when I'm in church

I try to remember what happened in that grove

And how I wound up by the sundial

With all the walls in the hallway

Stained in violet

As the day became evening.

And this evening

As I make my way to church

I stop to pluck a violet

As I pass through the grove;

I will leave it in the hallway

Or perhaps on the sundial.

And I know that this evening I will meet you in the grove

After going to church and passing through the hallway

For I have seen the violet light on the sundial.

Blech! Of course, as Regan pointed out, the point of the exercise is not to over-think it, and just see what comes up.  But I didn't like what came up in that last tercet, not at all, so I conceived an alternate ending (Hey, they do it with movies, why not with poems?), and came up with this:

But I am tired of the evening and bored by the grove;
There's no difference between a church and a hallway,
And the light falls violet on the sundial.

OK, whatever.  Some others read their sestinas, all of which were far more interesting than mine, while our lone male participant demurred.  I am sure his was the best and one day I'll see his photo on a book jacket of a prize-winning poetry collection and think, "Hey, wasn't he in Regan's class that night?"  In any event, way to be a Lord Byron-esque babe magnet!