Players at Camp (Sestina)

 

I really like to identify my daily players

early in the morning, so I can don the right face,

adopt a certain kind of smile, set some boundaries,

open a door.  Close a few.  No, it’s not control,

just trying to find some kind of structure:

a house for self, fort with moat, pitch a tent.

Pounding those stakes in to stabilize your tent

can really go wrong if you choose the wrong players,

You know. Looks like a parallelogram; no taut cloth structure;

silence, and then that kind of quiet blaming you see on every face

with sullen quiet until the wine causes loss of verbal control.

so the leader sets out to establish some new boundaries!

I just hate that psycho-babble about boundaries

until someone cuts a big hole in MY tent,

so I respond in kind by shifting my gears of control

and pulling out my right to edit the players,

--This tends to elicit a grimace on some face—

collapsing the status quo to re-build a better structure.

And come to think of it, the Parthenon is all structure

yet the Greeks used “entasis” to soften the boundaries

and give those pillars a kind of bowed-out face.

--You would probably never find that with a simple tent--

because their architects sought magnificent gods as players,

accepting that mortals were actually not in control.

Let me ask here: What makes you lose control

and go running back to self as an inviolable structure?

Perhaps we all want to identify the most positive players

so we don’t have to keep changing the boundaries!

Watch those creepy white tunnels the caterpillars make as tents,

meanwhile munching leaves, and leaving a tree without its face!

It’s so important that we try to wear an upbeat face,

but it’s just a veneer over fanged-tentative-control!

So, if blood rage gets out of hand, down comes the tent

and we wipe out the camping trip to re-gain structure,

once again fortifying the walls, chalking new boundaries

and, if necessary, eradicating a few negative players!

Keep the tent simple! Make it a loving structure!
Our beautiful faces hold joy. Ditch the blaming control!
Hugging players can live without those boundaries.

Kay Weeks on 7.11.12
Poem & photos