Sestina D'Inverno
Sestina d'Inverno Anthony HechtHere in this bleak city of Rochester, Where there are twenty-seven words for "snow," Not all of them polite, the wayward mind Basks in some Yucatan of its own making, Some coppery, sleek lagoon, or cinnamon island Alive with lemon tints and burnished natives,
And O that we were there. But here the natives Of this grey, sunless city of Rochester Have sown whole mines of salt about their land (Bare ruined Carthage that it is) while snow Comes down as if The Flood were in the making. Yet on that ocean Marvell called the mind
An ark sets forth which is itself the mind, Bound for some pungent green, some shore whose natives Blend coriander, cayenne, mint in making Roasts that would gladden the Earl of Rochester With sinfulness, and melt a polar snow. It might be well to remember that an island
Was blessed heaven once, more than an island, The grand, utopian dream of a noble mind. In that kind climate the mere thought of snow Was but a wedding cake; the youthful natives, Unable to conceive of Rochester, Made love, and were acrobatic in the making.
Dream as we may, there is far more to making Do than some wistful reverie of an island, Especially now when hope lies with the Rochester Gas and Electric Co., which doesn't mind Such profitable weather, while the natives Sink, like Pompeians, under a world of snow.
The one thing indisputable here is snow, The single verity of heaven's making, Deeply indifferent to the dreams of the natives, And the torn hoarding-posters of some island. Under our igloo skies the frozen mind Holds to one truth: it is grey, and called Rochester.
No island fantasy survives Rochester, Where to the natives destiny is snow That is neither to our mind nor of our making.