(Sestinas are pretty absurd as far as the having tons of rules goes. This is sort of based on that plot outline for a play that I did a while back. Need a title.)
The eager wind races over the face
Of the deep blue, white tipped sea,
Rolling the water below it up into
Waves. Its airy shriek becomes a hymn
To the quickly gathering storm, whose eye
Forms above the Pacific’s deepest well.
A small craft briefly atop an ocean swell
Sees more than it’s prepared to face.
A lone sailor’s straining eyes
Look out across the reckless sea
To see wind and water whipping round him;
And his vessel whipping round, too
He grips the gunnels but makes no move to
Seek the cabin’s shelter. Maybe it’s just as well:
It’s clear that this will be the end of him.
The water spits, the wind pummels his face,
And as it strives to shake him loose, it can see
The maniac gleam rising in his eye
Is this a man much braver than I?
Who chose to remain in safety, refused to
Break out and follow my friend to the sea.
If this is to be his end, then I surely chose well:
My life will not be torn apart by elemental fates.
Yet my monotony sees no end. Hmm.
Somehow it seems that I’m less real than him
Though this storm might be only in my mind’s eye.
I paint a crazy grin on his wind-bit face
And he watches the chaos with glee. He screams into
The wind; then, knowing that he might as well,
Laughs as I throw him to the sea.
A world away from my home in Tennessee,
A friend’s last breaths are torn away from him.
The endless ocean is now where he’ll dwell,
But knowing what I know of the man, I
Cannot help but imagine that he will go to
meet death with a smile etched on his face.
But if he faces death on the stormy sea,
Better there be two, and not just him.
I wish that I’d gone along. Oh well.