Sunrise Solo Sestina

rerun from Nov 2023

Photo by Jonathan Potter ⓒ 2023

i once soloed a plane over this basin,
once upon a time, and wants, a pawn,
a thyme (parsley, sage, rosemary and)
a few thousand sunrises ago
when my brain wasn't fully formed
and the rivers didn't say where they were going.

I gave myself a capital I while going
Off to college — not Columbia Basin, 
But a more expensive one that formed
The basis for eventually having to pawn
My license for something I'd had long ago,
Long before either/or turned into both/and.

but for the short while i had a Cessna and
two Pipers to fly i felt myself going
higher and higher and further ago
than i could remember as i washed in the basin
of my dorm/hospital room up on 
what felt like a hill — but feelings misinformed.

There I was a freshman there to be formed
By the study of the Great Works of the West and
Perhaps a nod to the East like a pawn
Glancing at the sunrise going, going,
Gone, like water swirling in the basin
And going down the drain of long ago.

remember me to one who ages ago
played that record in my room and formed
this memory before i gave up, went for a base on
balls and called it good, Joe DiMaggio and
his gal who'd got up at dawn and were going
to redeem everything I'd had to pawn.

But there I was in the air, riding high upon
The clouds, my instructor from long ago
With the pair of scissors he was going
To use to cut the back of my shirt which formed
A traditional keepsake suitable for framing and
Putting on the wall or to sponge out a basin

after shaving in that basin; a clean-shaven pawn
Going off to college and giving it a go,
the dawn newly formed, and going, going, gone.

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