Sestina by Elizabeth Bishop

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
Sits in the kitchen with the child
Beside the Little Marvel Stove,
Reading the jokes form the almanac,
Laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears
And the rain that beats on the roof of the house
Were both foretold by the almanac,
But only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It’s time for tea now; but the child
Is watching the teakettle’s small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
Hangs up the clever almanac

On its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
And her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
Feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
And a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
And shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother
Busies herself about the stove,
The little moons fall down like tears
From between the pages of the almanac
Into the flower bed the child
Has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
And the child draws another inscrutable house.

The first sestet has the following scansion: iambic tetrameter, trochaic pentameter, iambic tetrameter, iambic tetrameter, dactylic trimeter, and dactylic trimeter. The following five sestets, as well as the tercet that makes the envoi all have varying poetic lines. A little research showed that Bishop wrote her poem in the Provencal Form, which does not require any set meter, unlike most American sestinas which use iambic pentameter.

The poem speaks about the relationship between a child and a grandmother. Though the grandmother cares for the child, reading jokes from the almanac and making the child tea, she seems to be hiding something that’s upsetting her, because she knows that eventually, inevitably, she’ll have to “plant the tears” and let the child know the secret. The grandmother perhaps wants to keep the innocence of the child, but knows that no child can stay innocent forever. The poem is told in a third-person narrative, in a disconnected, matter-of-fact tone that states the facts as they are. The mood is somber, nostalgic, bittersweet, and melancholy.