I am here

Once upon a time, my Creative Writing class was assigned to write a sestina. And it was hard. I didn't get past the first stanza, and that stanza wasn't even completely finished, either. Far from it.

So why I can finish one off two years later is a complete mystery, but in one mad fit of words, I did. And, seeing as it's about love, I figured it might live well enough here among the YTS.

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Hope hovers in the sky today,
Spring measured in teaspoons
like the love I so delicately hold in cupped hands.
Kept close, it hums its own song
of prayer and promise in new light---
but I cannot match it to words.

Trembling now, it could break with words.
This dawn is yet too fragile today,
and almost too bright the light
might shatter this heart that beats in the spoon
of my palms, its rhythm-song
directed by your hands.

A whole world---what a handful!
We exchange ourselves in chance words,
a close chorus that sings
tomorrow is today.
Together they fit like stacked spoons,
collection of our combined light.

Perhaps too much, this light?
A flame too readily lit by my hands?
And yet we've tested this slowly by the spoonful:
a word, a laugh, another word . . .
No, I do not think today
is too much to ask of your singing.

For I am confident in my song---
it is the only one big enough to fill love's light.
Walking surely today,
a torch in one steady hand,
I balance (in the other) your words
as an egg on a spoon.

With every step I take, spooning
new notes from internal song,
I give you my word:
Love held transparent to the light.
Tomorrow is at hand;
you hold it in your today.

My heart, spooned from me with every word,
sings testament to your light
and hammers against my hand: we are today!

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A word from M now, yes? I miss you.