Here’s the canzone, a form that’s almost too
Taxing to write, because it takes, you see,
Five stanzas of twelve lines, descending to
A last tornada of five more that, to
The unobservant eye, might seem no more
Difficult than a sestina-maybe two
Sestinas. Wrong. As we sink deep into
Its stanza, there along the bottom lie
The last of the five end-words which ally
Their teams of meaning to give motion to
This painful form (repeating words hurts so).
Hereafter we must reap what now we sow.
-These words, I mean. The five words that get so
Familiar, as we go, though one or two
More repetitions still are easy-so
It seems that, if what one says is so,
Then saying yet once more that what we see
Is what we know, for instance, or that so
Many moments in life are just so-so
And to keep living them again is more
Than we can take, is certainly no more
To be deplored than never saying so.
(Such truisms! But where else does truth lie?
It’s not the once-told tales that still apply.)
Well, here we go again. A word like “lie”
Repeated at a stanza’s end can so
Becalm a text as almost to say “Lie
Down for a moment, five-stressed line, just lie
Down and relax-don’t feel you’re coming to
The same bad end again, the usual lie
Against the truth of rhyme, the pail of lye
Flung in the face of variation. See,
Isn’t this comfy now? Think of the sea,
Or summer.” But “You’ve made your bed, now lie
In it,” the stanzas yet unfinished, more
Out of concern than spite, give warning. More-
Over (enjambing even a stanza), more
Terminal words return, those we rely
Upon to cause us trouble, and those more
Likely to entertain us more and more
With their accomplishments (words sing, cook, sew,
Play the piano, warm your bed, and more.)
And, like refrains (a raven’s “Nevermore,”
A tra-la-lolly beating its tattoo),
Canzone end-words have their music, too,
Affirming music, which in ever more
Recurrent waves, agreeably says “Sí,
Señor” to firmness, as to the shore, the sea.
“Sí”. “Sea”. And here we are now at our C-
Minor triad, sad homecoming, once more.
Each stanza’s opening, we’ve come to see,
Ends with the last one’s doubled word. But see,
Beyond these hills of words the end will lie,
The distant water: some more hill, then the sea.
“Thalatta, thalatta!” (“The sea, the sea!”)
Weary Greek warriors cried in joy, and so
May we, after another “to” or so,
And moving up and down upon the see-
Saw of our déjà vu, for an hour or two
Hail that first end-word that we’ve travelled to.
Canzone, your lines now end with words one, two
(In this tornada), three, four, five: “to,” “see,”
“More,” “lie,” “so”-thus we meet up just once more
(Thirteen times now) with these old friends, and lie
Down to the rest for which we’ve labored so.
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