SESTINA*: 

LEAVING

Now at the airport I wait for the plane

Still wanting to tell you that maybe I'll stay.

But thoughts keep returning to four lonely girls

That we left behind.  And I think of the times

That we are not there as they continue to grow

Into the women we'd hoped they'd become.

Your country seduced me; a good reason to come?

Enough reason to follow your journey by plane?

You seemed then so eager for a place we could grow

Unfettered by daughters who needed to stay.

Uncertain, I packed, then unpacked several times

But ended up leaving that quartet of girls.

But life without them... I'd see faces of girls

That turned into faces of what they'd become

Their faces before me.  How many times

Would I reach out for them?  It surely was plain

I needed to be there; what reason to stay?

Love that we ran after just didn't grow.

What grew was a vacuum.  I felt it grow

Pushing me back face to face with my girls

So silent, not asking, "Please won't you stay."

And you never spoke of them.  Will time ever come

That you think of them?  No, I must board that plane

And try to return to a place, to the times

Where all of us shared in the bad and good times

Not one of us choosing a space that would grow

To a wasteland so vast it required a plane

To bring us together: you, me and the girls.

Would that could happen, all six of us come

And rejoice in reunion, all choosing to stay.

Yet here I stand waiting; will anything stay

My slow steady walk that will take me to times

That are coming, so lonely; already have come?

I feel them possess me, I know grief will grow

Throughout the long hours 'til I see the girls

Mature now and lovely, meeting my plane.

What does it matter if you come or I stay?

With either it's plain that happier times

Never will grow for us -- you, me and the girls.

_    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _

*  A SESTINA is an ancient form of French poetry, developed by story-telling troubadours.  It has a rigidly prescribed format:  six stanzas containing six lines each and a final seventh stanza containing three lines, ending the poem.  The six words that end each of the lines of the first stanza must be used to end each line of subsequent stanzas in a prescribed pattern, most notably that the last word of each stanza must be used to end the first line of the following stanza.  Additionally, the six words, two each in a specified order, must be contained in the three last lines.  It becomes a challenge similar to working a crossword puzzle.