by Nick Gisburne
We light the candles for the lost
Each restless soul, each troubled shade
And wish that in our guiding light
Their hearts will find the peace of night
We watch the twilight fall and fade
And yearn for those who crossed
So long since they, our people, crossed
A dozen longships, all were lost
But memories refuse to fade
We feel their presence in the shade
And so, together, in the night
We lift another light
They took the tide by winter’s light
The stars would guide them as they crossed
But in the deadly fog of night
The sky, full hidden, veiled and lost
Brought down a dark and deadly shade
Where dreams must surely fade
The flames of courage never fade
They burn as strong as any light
So journeyed without fear of shade
Bold sailors of the North who crossed
Brave heroes, now forever lost
All taken by the night
A silver dawn dispels the night
Our candles turn to smoke and fade
And sorrow burns for those we lost
For those who did not see the light
We honour them, the souls who crossed
The spirits of the shade
In time the sun will fall to shade
And bring the everlasting night
And when the last of us have crossed
Then we from memory will fade
But while we live, we lift the light
The candles for the lost
This is the second time I’ve written a sestina, and the mood is intentionally very different from The Jagged Killing Knife.
The 6 end-words of a sestina repeat throughout the poem. They don’t usually rhyme, but I chose to use 3 rhyming pairs because I enjoy the way the poem flows when the rhymes move around in the stanzas.
The choice of words was not random. I chose 6 words which suggested a sombre mood, and from there, as it often does, the story simply told itself to me. Lost and crossed – that’s all I needed to hear. That reminded me of Viking ships crossing the seas hundreds of years ago. Inevitably some of those ships would be lost. How would their families mourn them?
For this form of poem, a sestina, there is supposed to be an ‘envoi’ at the end, a three-line ‘summing up’ of the poem. But not here. The story is complete, so I think anything added onto it would be out of place. I hope I understand the rules well enough to break them!
