NaPoWriMo: Sestina #2

Here's the draft:


It's Just a Day or Two


A red-winged blackbird perches on a reed.
I've waited long for spring to come, to warm
the early morning, bring the light. I need
to walk outside, let go of the long storm.
I watch the water's mirror stirred by wind,
a changing patch of cat's paw ripples pinned

to the surface like a reminder pinned
to a cork board--Don't Forget--that I read
and don't remember, mind blown clean like wind
swept afternoons. I try to think, to warm
these fingers in between pockets of storm.
It's just a day or two--a week--I need,

a month or a year to catch up. I knead
my tired hands through the thin gloves, palms pinned
by damp cold, try to chase the shadow storm
that lingers after night recedes. A reed
stands like a lucky flute. The sun looks warm
enough to matter, but the steel-blue wind

picks up my skin, scrapes at my face. I wind
my scarlet scarf around my neck. I need
to button up, let my worries down, warm
the same old poem over and over, pinned
like a flower on my lapel. A reed
becomes an instrument. A thunder storm

sounds like a symphony. I want a storm
of oboes, want the melodies to wind
like water while my feet stay dry. A reed
makes a baton or a slim stake. I need
to be anchored fast, settled somewhere, pinned
but with a little room to move, to warm

up to my middle age. I want to warm
these tendering years after the flash storm
of hide and seeking, four decades pinned
to growing older, feel my days unwind,
give into time, stand as still as a reed
in this short field of my dreams. Yes, I need

spring to warm the pond and its ducks, to wind
through each reed shoots of green, even pinned
by winter's fists of storm. I need this poem.