Jess's Sestina

Sestina for a Semester Abroad

Open the window, see the town is a picture,

this morning Cortona is wrapped in a cloud.

My eyes take it in, using as their guide

the solidarity of paths in aged stone,

from this building behind sky-reaching trees,

once populated by nuns in long robes.

Curled into sheets I wear as robes

I sketch into a journal a small picture,

I don’t want to forget any of these trees,

won’t let the memory of this cloud over.

I’ll walk to the fountain and carry a stone

to wish for the time to be my own guide.

Art museums see me pass through guided

by the firm hand of my friend whose robes

are shed far earlier than mine, and whose stones

are flung with greater force at my picture

of quiet wandering like a cloud.

I steal moments to take photos of trees.

Let’s make a reservation for three,

our taste buds can be our guides

in restaurants where we grin like clowns.

At the leather shop we’re robed

and think ourselves a picture

as the rain falls outside the store.

Gaze at people made of stone

stretching up like trees,

there’s more here than I had pictured

from my stack of travel guides.

I’ll follow a monk in chocolate robes

to the monastery dipped in cloud.

My mind is freed from clouds here,

at this monk’s paradise formed from stone.

I think about stealing some robes

and hiding out here behind some trees,

watching their behaviour as a guide

but it wouldn’t be as I picture it.

Instead I’ll take this picture home and plant it like a tree,

Wear the lightweight robes I form from clouds,

And set down a guiding path of stone.

Jess Govier