Yesterday, 10:04 AM
This is not the one I got furthest in but it is the one that was shaping up best until I realised I had totally blown the rhyme scheme. What an awful thing a sestina is to do to verse! I am still game for trying a Limerick, even tho I have lost our duel, pour l'honneur ::duelist::
Quote:ST1
childhood in poland; russian occupation; clandestine schools;
In Warsaw’s grip, she learned to swallow grief
Where science wore a shackle, not a glow
Russian tongues erased her native light
But she memorised rebellion?resistance?defiance? like a law
Smuggled thoughts in books beneath the dust
And fed a brain? too big for fear or home
ST2
arrival in paris; poverty and squalor; malnutrition; obsession
A nation? made her exile from her home
She measured out her meals like rationed grief
Each textbook read ? dust
? the need to chase that glow
Where every rule bent under study’s law;
She came to Paris starving for that light
ST3
relationship with pierre; match of equals; shared scientific inquiries
Then Pierre: Not lover, but kindred law
aligned in discipline and dust
a salve for her father's grief
He her foundation, she his guiding light
home
from respect, their romance would glow
ST4
radium, polonium, fame;
They did not fear that eerie glow
mathematics defined its law
made a lab out of their home
air that thickened daily into dust
chasing light
Oblivious to their slow-earned, glowing grief.
ST5
pierres death; cart; grief; dragging herself back to work
ST6
late work; mobile xrays; failing vision; bones weakening
Her home is sealed behind thick glass and dust
Her light still burns, but not without her grief
The glow she left illuminates life and law