Sestina Homework

     This was for Poetry Writing during the fall 2015 semester at Rogers State University. One of our homework assignments this week was to practice a sestina, which has six stanzas of six lines each, plus a three-line epilogue, and the end-words all have to be same, just mixed up in a prescribed manner. The six end-words Dr. Mackie gave us were "blue", "forest", "understanding", "misanthropic", "calm" and "sunshine". The tone of this poem probably came from hearing from a guy I know that his wife just died suddenly a few days before. Guess I was somehow putting myself in his shoes while writing this.

 People say to me, “Forrest,

You’ve been feeling blue

Because you ain’t got no understanding

For folk’s feelings. In fact, you’re misanthropic!”

Is it my fault that my mind is somewhat calm

Only on days when it’s without sunshine?

Radio’s playing Johnny Cash’s “You Are My Sunshine”,

I can’t even – white-girl talk – so I bolt, hearing that “Run, Forrest…

You better run!” The weather’s too calm;

Sky going to the dark side, navy blue.

These thunderstorms, I swear, are misanthropic.

What a word, eh? Passes most all understanding.

Like baseball, for instance. Always had trouble understanding

How folks can spend all day in the hot sunshine

Watching players stand still for three hours. I’d say the misanthropic

One was Abner Doubleday. I’d rather be in the forest

With no traces of Dodger or Mariner blue

Caps; the wild things nap, their routines calm.

Lisa was always so calm.

And popular, and kind, and understanding;

That’s what people said. She fixed up our place all in baby blue…

On our way back from a Sunday sunshined

Baseball game we wrecked outside the forest…

I’m an introvert and grieving, not misanthropic.

How do you even spell “misanthropic”?

It’s a Jeopardy word; they always seem so calm

Questioning answers like “What is the Amazon rainforest?”

To “Alex the parrot hails from here; he could help ours with understanding

The difficult tongue-twisters.” $800, question: “What is sunshine?”

I wouldn’t be bad at this game, final-round scrawling on the screen of blue

My answer-question, for why I seem blue.

I wagered $11,200 on “What is misanthropic?”

And then the alarm goes off and there’s the sunshine

Bright through the window. Time for work. I leave, calm

As I can fake, to help patients today by appearing understanding

And coming home to the empty crib that should’ve been Forrest’s.

I’ll retreat into the calm forest

Where whatever my misanthropic understanding

Of human blues will be eased by the warm sunshine.