Journey

journey s

Imagine a world spinning green–
 imagine standing under a tree,
beginning a journey
filled with the sky, an endless
searching of the horizon
for a way out of sorrow,

a constant companion–sorrow,
 too, follows this path, like the green
stretching to the horizon–
but grief can rest in the shade of a tree,
above roots that touch endless
other wayfarers, merging together each journey–

thoughts turn into themselves, and the journey
 becomes slippery with a sorrow
that slithers from an endless
dark place—hidden from the green,
waiting in corridors, like a tree
searching for the sun on the horizon–

wayfarer s

and yet each morning the horizon
 opens again with light, and the journey
awakens and takes flight with the birds in the tree–
to come out from behind the sorrow,
to see instead the green
against the blue sky that holds the promise, endless

transformation , endless
 colors that sparkle the horizon,
that follow the patterns of green,
that follow the journey
of what began in sorrow
into the enfolding branches of a tree–

a tree that shelters, a tree
 that becomes a refuge to endless
migrations of grief, loss, sorrow–
steps taken from horizon to horizon,
into the unknown terrain of every journey–
out of the shadows into a land of green–

Imagine a tree on the horizon–
 imagine an endless dream, a mapless journey—
all the secret songs of sorrow turning into fertile fields of green

A sestina for Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, above.  Sestina is the current featured poetic form at dVerse, introduced by Victoria.

green s2

Looking into my past archives, I only found one previous sestina, which also has a hue of sadness, but in red.  Green is much more hopeful.

And I’ve been dreaming of trees.

 

37 thoughts on “Journey”

  4. All that green and sorrow and transformation! And you wrote a sestina too. I’d never have known. It has made a lovely poem that curls around itself like tree roots. I didn’t even get beyond reading the rules for this form. Well done!

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    1. Thanks Jane. The trees in my dreams have been quite strange and vivid…full of green.
      The sestina explanation on dVerse had me totally flummoxed. I looked it up a few other places and figured it out. I think repetition within the lines of the poem helps to keep the form from being too obvious.

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      1. My eyes just glazed over reading the rules. i read about it on Wikipedia and someone said if the form that it’s the kind of poem that gives great satisfaction to the poet for having written it, and not much to the reader. Your poem has been an eye opener and I’m working on one now.

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  5. Just beautiful, Kerfe–and hopeful–and a sestina, too! I love the trees and the circles (like a pantoum). 🙂
    I haven’t even had a chance to think about a sestina yet. I love all the magic and wonder here.

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  7. I love the idea of the transformation of sorrow into fields of green with the turning globe. What comes to mind is when you throw kitchen scraps into the compost pile and after enough seasons it becomes fertile soil for the fields, trees, etc. Dreaming of trees must mean you’re branching/reaching out… Beautiful artwork and sestina, K.

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  8. This is really meaningful to me today as, this morning, when walking my dogs, I couldn’t help but notice all the variations of green in the billowing trees which seem to be at their proudest right now. For me green is a hopeful, fertile color and that tinge of sorrow that is woven through the poem makes it so like life. You wrote to the form so smoothly that it served its purpose to somehow disappear behind the words.

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  9. Pingback: Ripples of truth – Jane Dougherty Writes

  11. What a wonderful evocation of the journey through deep grief to healing the sorrow. I can’t really express my response so eloquently but can onky say I’ve taken that journey and your words ring true.

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  13. Pingback: Photo prompt round-up: Journey #writephoto | Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

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