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A Simple Sunset Sestina
You sit beside me, not quite silent,
As the glow sinks below the sails
Of ships that have sailed since the time
You wrapped your safety gently
Around my quivering four-year-old body
And told me that death was not then.
But now is still not then,
And we have changed: I more silent
And you stronger for the body
That has carried you, you, the sails
Of a vessel that will cradle you transcendently, gently.
Alas, if it weren’t for time.
Do you remember that time
When you betrayed me then,
As you have done too often since, not gently
But thrummingly, when I wanted you silent?
I wanted to tell you that beyond my sails
You were nothing, when really you are the center of my body.
Are you the same in the body
Of a flea? Time
Flows differently, rapidly, sails
Through life, cuts short, then
Descends into blackness. Is it silent?
Does it tear perfectly? Or even gently?
I like to think, as the sun sets gently,
That my mind without my body
Is something substantial, not something silent,
Something that transcends time,
That outlives corporeality, and then
Some, takes flight on deathbed sails.
I cannot comprehend how something set off on the sails
Of a body, of you who support me totally and gently
Thrumming on the frame of my being, will then,
One day, suddenly become not my body.
End of time.
Silent.
Now, you throb triumphantly, flaunting sails that carry my body
Ever so gently, warmly, marking off time
Deliberately then and now and until the end, yet to others, silent.
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In a sestina, the words used to end each line in the first stanza are used in different combinations to end the lines of the next stanzas. Can you guess what this one is actually about? (Hint: it has nothing to do about the title)