Sestina: Stars
The next in a series of sestinas written back in 2002–2003, all using the same six end words.
This is the one sestina that doesn’t exactly live up to the title — I mean, sure, the stars are there, as they are in the other sestinas, but that’s not the focus — unlike Shadow, where the focus is shadow, or Silk, where using silk becomes a thing, and so on. This one, not so much. It bothered me enough that I ended up writing a seventh sestina, one that did focus on stars — a sestina that is currently lost.
So until I find it, here, a sestina which at least contains stars, and does contain a tale:
I will tell you the story of a swan —
less a story, perhaps, than a song
of how a swan became bedecked in silk
and found her wings bejeweled with silver
so that she glittered like the stars
and seemed to leave behind all shadow.
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The tale, of course, begins in shadow
before the swan was quite a swan
adrift in a lake below the stars
baring her neck to fair birdsong
wishing wistful dreams of silver
or of cushions made of silk.
They all, you see, dreamed of silk
of stepping from beneath the shadow
of the trees bedecked with silver
to be honored, a victorious swan
floating gracefully as song,
beneath the fiery distant stars.
One night, they saw the very stars
vanish, as if hidden within silk.
Not a single bird dared sing a song
under this fearsome, unknown shadow.
The swan — not yet a swan –
craned her neck in fear, searching for silver –
for any light. But no faint silver
from any of the vanished stars
touched this swan-not-yet-a-swan
until upon her feathers fell some silk
cloaking her into further shadow.
In terror, she raised her voice in song –
Only to find that she had no song,
not even a harsh rasp of silver.
She trembled beneath the shadow,
and breathed the dust of stars.
Wings beating, she pushed through the silk –
and found herself a swan.
Or so runs the story, and the song –
of how dust, and stars, and silk, and silver –
let a swan soar away from shadow.
