Haunted

Ever heard of the poetry-form "Sestina"? A sestina consists of thirty-nine lines — six stanzas of six lines each with a three-line concluding stanza.

The feature that distinguishes the sestina is that the words which end the lines in the first stanza are repeated as the end words for the second stanza and so on in a fixed pattern until you have written six stanzas. The same six words appear in the concluding three line stanza — two in each line. I find it a very beautiful form of poetry and this one below is written in the same format.

This is where i was born

Where I was raised

And yet, today I cannot find myself

Part of this world

There is a curtain drawn

Between this life and me.

Is this me, or was that me?

The place where my beliefs were born

I look for someone called myself

Within these walls where I was drawn

The house is dark and so is my world

I wait for the curtains to be raised.

And as these curtains are raised

I look into the mirror and a broken me

I squint to recognize myself

The specs of dust in my world

This is where my smiles were born

Love and I together drawn.

A notebook with a picture drawn

Flaps around to be raised

Into my hands-it was drawn by me

Some hills, a river, a morning sun born

Faded colors, but a living world

Where I cannot see myself.

As I hunt for myself

I see the window, the pane half raised

When I left, were the shutters drawn?

Tomorrow, this will light the world

The window that shows the night to me

Does it tell me how hope is born?

And now that hope is born

I walk the dark garden by myself

Dried flowers on their beds raised

With bent heads they lay beside me

Over my head this rock is drawn

Hiding me from the living world.

As the night deepens and stars are drawn

From my dead tomb my soul is raised

My soul lives on where I was born.