Fishing for Sestinas
At first, there is only the paper
as plain as sleep without the dream,
as flat as the sea without its waves,
no sound, no ripple, no fish
slipping in and out so
suspiciously. Ah, now write
that, not worrying about wrong or right
but only what floats up to your paper,
what your fishing pole of a pencil tugs so
deliciously toward your eyes. Dream
of letters swish-swishing their fins, of fish
bright as summer minutes, of waves
that twist and flip and cha-cha-cha. Wave
hello and reel them in. Words are your net. Write
a thousand buckets full of fish
that flip about, splash till you and your paper
are soaked with poems and all they dream.
Too many? No need to even sew
up the holes, the poems themselves sew
together our world, the way fish in waves
thread themselves in-and-out, the way dreams
swim their own stories, can write
themselves below the surface, the way paper
can catch even the smallest fish
floating within your mind. Let’s fish
together on quiet afternoons so
still you hear the whispers of bluegills. With their paper-
thin scales, they rise above the waves
of your thoughts, trying to write
up their own storm of images. Let’s dream
this water together, this lake of dreams
brimming full of rainbow, rhyming fish
that glitter as they leap. Let’s write
the entire salty ocean so
full of creatures, they surf the waves,
then scuttle across the flat sand of paper.
Ah, the joy of pencil and paper that dream
such jubilant waves, that fish
for syllables so splendid we cast our lines and write.
Previously published in True, False, None of the Above (Cascade) and Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems(Schoolwide)