Winter Sestina

Winter sestina on summer nights she cupped love in her heart tasted the honey of a gentle kiss and the heat of an exotic garden, she roamed in a rabble of wild colours, with rows of chillies red hot in the sun, back when she was young, heart hammering, fluttering like a bird she knew a freedom then and flew, like a bird on the wind of words that touched her heart, like Spring she burst with the richness of the young she danced and claimed her man for a kiss her blood burning in her like juice of chillies she was exploring love and luscious in the garden now frost silvers the branches in the garden she fluffs herself in feathers like a bird, her tropical thoughts, hot as chillies still simmer in a corner of her heart, though she has passed the joys and langour of the kiss she knows the white heat of being young she has a freedom too, not felt when she was young is curious to know who lives now in the garden, she knows the thousand meanings of a kiss and feels the height and flight of every bird, the smiles of those she loves nest in her heart warming her blood and glowing like chillies in a shadowed door she sits and strings the chillies watching the posturing of the young, benevolent, smiling, letting loose her heart in memories of time once spent in a garden when all she could hear was the singing of the bird and all her dreams were garnished with a kiss her love flows broader now, gifted with a kiss the wind of her years rattles her old bones, like chillies on a tin roof in the sun, watched by a bird who remembers too, how it was to be young, who flew and nested in a golden garden and sang the songs that touched the woman’s heart now, in winter frost, her heart is warmed with every childish kiss, in the garden are scattered seeds and skins of long dead chillies, and the young ones listen for the voice of the bird