Sestinas
see also work by Sherman Alexie
A Miracle for Breakfast
At six o'clock we were waiting for coffee,
waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb
that was going to be served from a certain
balcony,
--like kings of old, or like a miracle.
It was still dark. One foot of the
sun
steadied itself on a long ripple in the
river.
The first ferry of the day had just crossed
the river.
It was so cold we hoped that the coffee
would be very hot, seeing that the sun
was not going to warm us; and that the
crumb
would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle.
At seven a man stepped out on the balcony.
He stood for a minute alone on the balcony
looking over our heads toward the river.
A servant handed him the makings of a miracle,
consisting of one lone cup of coffee
and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb,
his head, so to speak, in the clouds--along
with the sun.
Was the man crazy? What under the
sun
ws he trying to do, up there on his balcony!
Each man received one rather hard crumb,
which some flicked scornfully into the
river,
and, in a cup, one drop of coffee.
Some of us stood around, waiting for the
miracle.
I can tell what I saw next; it was not
a miracle.
A beautiful villa stood in the sun
and from its doors came the smell of hot
coffee.
In front, a baroque white plaster balcony
added by birds, who nest along the river,
--I saw it with one eye close to the crumb--
and galleries and marble chambers. My
crumb,
my mansion, made for me by a miracle,
through ages, by insects, birds, and
the river
working the stone. Every day, in
the sun,
at breakfast time I sit on my balcony
with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee.
We licked up the crumb and swallowed the
coffee.
A window across the river caught the sun
as if the miracle were working, on the
wrong balcony.
—Elizabeth Bishop
Sestina
September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.
She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of
the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,
It's time for tea now; but the
child
is watching the teakettle's small hard
tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac
on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the
stove.
It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.
But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons falls down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the
house.
Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous
stove
and the child draws another inscrutable
house.
—Elizabeth
Bishop
Sestina: Here in Katmandu
We have climbed the mountain.
There's nothing more to do.
It is terrible to come down
To the valley
Where, amidst many flowers,
One thinks of snow,
As formerly, amidst snow,
Climbing the mountain,
One thought of flowers,
Tremulous, ruddy with dew,
In the valley.
One caught their scent coming down.
It is difficult to adjust, once down,
To the absense of snow.
Clear days, from the valley,
One looks up at the mountain.
What else is there to do?
Prayer wheels, flowers!
Let the flowers
Fade, the prayer wheels run down.
What have they to do
With us who have stood atop the snow
Atop the mountain,
Flags seen from the valley?
It might be possible to live in the valley,
To bury oneself among flowers,
If one could forget the mountain,
How, never once looking down,
Stiff, blinded with snow,
One knew what to do.
Meanwhile it is not easy here in Katmandu,
Especially when to the valley
That wind which means snow
Elsewhere, but here means flowers,
Comes down,
As soon it must, from the mountain.
—Donald Justice