Author’s Note: In poetry class in college, we attempted different forms. This is a sestina. Sestinas are a pain, where you choose six words to end each of the six lines of a stanza, and these words rotate through the lines of each subsequent stanza, until you use them all in the last three lines of the poem. Also, sestinas don’t normally rhyme. I wanted mine to rhyme. And so it does. I hadn’t read this is a long time, but it still sounds good, at the very least.
“I have a tale to tell,” I yell throughout the inn one night.
The drunken faces turn like weather vanes, their voices fade—
They know, of course, that I can tell a tale and tell it right—
And so, like kids they wait expectantly, each man and maid.
A fellow dumps his beer upon the fire to dim the light.
“This is the tale of Gold and Ruby and their sister, Jade.
“Their mom, I fear, had passed away while giving birth to Jade.
Their father, though, was then a politician, once a knight,
His splendor tarnished long ago while battling a Fade.
You know of Fades, those shadow-fiends that hide in darkness, right?
They rarely show themselves, but everything that’s dark is made
Of thoughts they think and breaths they breathe—the enemy of light.
“The kingdom and its subjects shone with scintillating light
The day the stranger came with tragedy for lovely Jade.
He came by coach, in dust, with introductions long as night.
He brought a chest of glowing beauty that would never fade.
And this aquarium of dreams he said was theirs by right
If only they could guess the stuff of which the chest was made.
“Now Gold was slim and blond and twenty-one. He had it made,
And yet he longed to have this cubic sun, this solid light,
To robe himself in heaven’s warmth. He shivered, pushed past Jade,
And grasped its surface as a lady to her war-bound knight.
A sniff, a bite, a drink, a soak…and he would never fade.
‘The whispers of the soul that are not heard are in there, right?’
“Now Ruby spoke, his voice a flaming whip. ‘That isn’t right.
The soul cannot be boxed. Inside resides the love of maids,
The wheel of fire which is desire, true sight of passion’s light!’
He too embraced the chest he wished to own, ignoring Jade.
The stranger did not answer. No one moved till day was night—
The constant war of gloom and glory stood in hands of Fades.
“Now Jade adored her brothers and abhorred the things of Fades,
But in the ghastly light the two congealed, the wrong with right:
Her brothers hated her and loved the goddess they had made.
She trembled, bright with rage, and grabbed the stranger’s cloak. ‘That light!
It’s stolen every snatch of beauty, love, and pride,” screamed Jade,
‘On which the light of life finds strength to fight the dying night!’
“The stranger then transformed to Night, embodiment of Fade.
‘You’re right in part, but gifts aren’t stolen, but are freely made.’
He took her forfeit light and left but Jealousy in Jade.”