A Sestina. A Bright Yellow Moon.

A Sestina is a form said to have been invented in 13th Century Provence. It does not use rhyme and consists of six stanzas of six lines each (sestets) and concludes with a final 3 line ( tercet) envoie.

In the six stanzas, the end words get repeated in a certain order: in the closing tercet, all six words are used. If the six end words in the first stanza are labeled ABCDEF, the order of the words in each stanza go like this.

1. ABCDEF

2. FAEBDC

3. CFDABE

4. ECBFAD

5. DEACFB

6. BDFECA

7. The Tercet. ECA for end of lines, and BDF in the middle of each line, that is BE,DC,FA.

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Harvest time under a bright yellow moon,

fishermen in boats went to sea.

Their nets full of herring cost a death,

for they did not go deasil along with the sun.

Left on the shore was a girl in love,

a child in her womb and now pain in her heart.

A fatherless child was born and gave heart,

to a girl who once danced, under the moon.

This strong healthy boy, swaddled in love,

lived in a house which looked over the sea.

With hair fair as corn, skin browned by the sun,

he helped the young widow, parley with death.

Talk of his father, and the way of his death,

brought tears to her eyes and shrivelled her heart.

She thought of the future, at the setting of the sun,

and nights when there shone a bright yellow moon.

She feared for the day, when he went off to the sea,

following after his father, her lost darling love.

She prayed that the ties of a mother's love,

would keep her son from a watery death.

She sat every night looking out to the sea,

longing once more to hold her sweet-heart.

Dancing all night under a bright yellow moon,

and falling into bed at the rising of the sun.

The boy would rise early,be up with the sun,

he'd rush to the harbour, to see his true love.

A boat that would sail under a bright yellow moon,

with men who caught fish at the cost of a death.

For it ran in his blood, and pumped through his heart,

a need to take heed of, the calling of the sea.

The day it did come, and he went off to sea,

the young widow rose at the rise of the sun.

At home all alone now with fear in her heart,

her son now a man, all that's left of a love.

Her love for a fisherman, who went to his death,

catching herring under a bright yellow moon.

The boat went to sea taking away all her love,

following the sun under the shadow of death.

With the love of her heart, a bright yellow moon.