Bettina’s Sestina

Ease of the saint in bartering wisdom,
the truant forager sleeps till midnight.
I wire the Pope about Sunday in the trees
where time leaps furtively into the ocean
scraping scars of winter, as the blind turn to day
and frail snow earns each divinity’s displeasure.

We stacked the weak until around midnight
not wishing to clock our candidate’s displeasure.
Without further concentration we spit into the ocean
and the ocean spits back, sliding us into the trees
where we consider cocoanuts of wisdom
flooding lithesome frameworks once a day.

Bettina my love, give it a shove, share your displeasure
let it creak softly by night or by day.
You can’t get by with the wizard’s chronic wisdom
unless the curl is restored in the starved mote of midnight
and the ladder withdraws from its suit of the ocean.
You’ll be eating for weeks in the thumbs of trees.

There is no dancing here to illuminate the day.
The edges of protection fade into the ocean
masked by scattered canticles of displeasure.
Sorrow fails the clever wounded, suspicious of wisdom.
They laugh like darkness lost in trees.
They have not heard Bettina’s sob unfurl at midnight.

Salt flails, trying to attract the eager evidence of trees.
The fish wouldn’t miss the crease in its wisdom
though it’s fashionable now to spray doubts by day.
While we serve at the king’s last known displeasure
Bettina arrives in her carriage near midnight
tearing down the forbidden easement to the ocean.

Gravity’s onion is peeled back by the ocean
where Bettina leases the imaginary trees.
Caves of inconsequence fade into midnight
but the placating minions live to nod another day.
Bettina, marine dwellers urge their displeasure
upon the rocks of your woeful whim of wisdom.

We stand upon the waters of wobbling wisdom
only to screech the measure for measure of day.
Bettina clutches yearnings in the curl of the trees.