A Sestina for Hamilton

 My "Poetry and Meditation" class immediately jumped into the deep end with the introduction of the sestina. A sestina is a 6 stanza poem with a final triplet, with repeating end words in a specific pattern.

123456

615243     

364125

532614

451362

246531 

6/2

1/4

5/3

We wrote one as a class (each person came up with a word, then we each wrote a stanza), and it came out surprisingly beautiful. The master of this form is Elizabeth Bishop, who is one of my favorite poets. I like the constraint and challenge of this form and thought I'd give it a go. I asked my FB friends for words they associated with parenting, I chose 6, and I was off. Okay, I wasn't off, at all. I wrote two stanzas and abandoned it for a three weeks. Returned to it today after throwing clothes in the dryer! Super rough. But FINISHED.

The technician points, See? There is his hand.
If I squint at the whirling black and white with patience
I can see it. Is he swimming or waving in my uterine water?
Seeing and feeling is not enough to imagine fully this nugget
This tiny thing I first build a home
With my body. And then with my heart.

For nine months the woosh woosh of his heart
Is relief, is joy, is the precursor to my finger wrapped in his hand.
Hope, worry, fatigue, formula, and swaddle blankets follow us home.
Mumbled curses signal the pack-n-play’s victory over Alex’s patience.
I wonder vaguely then where he will sleep, our little nugget.
And how I will be brave enough to bathe him in water.

Two miles west lies the Pacific, a blanket of water
That never fails to calm my heart.
If only I could transform it into a blue nugget
I can keep in my pocket, to feel solid in my hand.
I can clasp the waves and regain patience
For myself, for my husband, for this new boy in my home.

He first made my body a home, now my home is more home.
I see him feel the same calming in the water.
A bath, a swim, a splash grows joy and patience.
I hear his heart next to my heart
When I hold his dimpled hand
Even when it resists, when it is like a greedy fist clutching a gold nugget.

“Cherish Kairos Time” is my favorite wisdom in a nugget.
Listening to Alex reading bedtime stories when he comes home.
A stumble, a scraped knee, and a hand
Reaching for me, to help wipe away salty water
Spilling from his eyes and replace it with comfort in his heart.
Errands and dishes and diapers and cleaning—the Chronos time—tries my patience.

I wonder and wonder and wonder if I have enough patience
For this boy who only eats chicken nuggets.
Who likes to hide and protect his heart.
Can I make this house, this family, feel like home?
That there is love and hope more vast than the water
Running beneath the pier, running through his hand?

Can a heart hold enough patience?
Can an outstretched hand hold more than a nugget
Of home? And instead an ocean of water?