Fish Flight - Not Quite A Sestina

My not-quite a sestina: - I chose my end words and used them throughout; however I did NOTuse them in the designated order, but rather as random throughout each stanza as I got them to fit what I wanted to say; I'm afraid that doesn't quite cut the mustard.  Secondly I didn't use all 6 words in the envoy but instead used only the three end words and they are also not in the prescribed order.

I haven't checked lately but I believe it is in iambic pentameter.  I think it makes perfect sense which isn't easy when one is forcing sentences to particular word endings. And it is the correct number of lines. So it's very flawed, but a decent first attempt made some time ago.  I will have another go but just as you will find, this is a puzzle that takes some time to figure out and play with. (And I haven't had much of that lately.)  Have fun!

*******

I walk with memories of pale cool shells

The night awash with brilliant streams of fish

That glint and flash like darting moonlight streaks.

I watch in awe the curling water move.

I sense the knife that cuts below the rocks

Then bathes that buried wound with briny dreams

The arching water foams around the rocks

And forms designs reminding me of shells.

My mind reflects in little darting streaks

Upon the constant of the busy fish

Now like a diary of all my dreams

That flurried rush shows me how lives will move,

Will eddy into silent coves near rocks

Then wait beyond a generation's dreams

Before the currents' flow sweeps both the fish

And wreckage onto other streams in streaks.

Most life evolves and leaves to chance its shells

In broken segments wearing smooth. Fish move.

With goals inscribed by both their needs and dreams

They lose their coven brothers as they streak

Through avenues of sand past broken rocks.

The rush of water and of time will move

Each one away from every other fish

Who left time's fragments shining like lost shells.

It seems my friends can disappear in streaks

As quick as tiny lights that swim through rocks.

I dread events that force our lives to move

And urge us to determine like the fish

Just when to leave the safety of our shells

And risk the swim by dark to half-formed dreams.

Embedded melancholy in those dreams

Is not considered when they leave their shells.

Adventure doesn't count on threatening rocks.

The thirst for newness forces all such fish

To course through enigmatic depths in streaks

Sometimes discerning ruin by such a move.

My hands stretch out to capture time and fish

That streak away before my arms can move.

I ponder loss withdrawing to my shell.

© Gay Reiser Cannon * All Rights Reserved