11 | "A'buzz amid the summer" [sestina]

Awakening late at night
a pain is in my shoulder
cicadas of late summer
are making such a buzz!
my aim in living was?
don't know!   I'm getting older!

Time passes   one gets older
the day revolves with night
one can't recall what was
the burden on one's shoulder
cicadas blithely buzz
in late and torpid summer

There comes an end to summer
each year the world is older
cicadas love to buzz
amid the dark of night
life offers us its shoulder
we're wading through what was

What is comes from   what was
as winter sires   summer
the ankle   and the shoulder
the younger   and the older
the day replacing   night
the spinning world   a'buzz

All tones are in   the buzz
all will be in   what was
all days are hid   in night
as autumn hides in   summer
it's true   I'm getting older
one needs   a solid shoulder

Amid the things we shoulder
confusions   come a'buzz
as one is growing older
one's is gets lost in   was
a depth lies in the summer
especially   at night

The older life of night
a'buzz amid the summer
is shouldering what was



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[Regarding the little kaleidoscope that the form applies to any new end-rhyme pattern one offers to its algorithm, the presenet poem shows still another result. If one were to deem "summer / shoulder / older" as a single (slant)rhyme, this is then this sestina's schema for stanza 1: XAABBA. But perhaps a slant-rhyme is better tracked as an "a" than an "A"; then one can write it as: XaABBA. (I'll hereby create that analytical convention.) Note the various results -- e.g. stanza 5, which emerges from the sestina-kaleidoscope as BBXaAA -- buzz / was / night / summer / older / shoulder. In the envoy here, end-rhymes are internalized.] Beyond prosody, must say: these cicadas merit the newsprint of poetry. Quite phenomenal at two in the morning, here in Washington, adjacent Rock Creek Park.