A Sestina Calling for Retirement

I.

On days when students wrestle over poems
Like "Message Clear" that focus in on Christ
I often walk among them offering advice,
My favorite way to run a senior class.
Of course, it's all because of how they grow
From freshmen to adults in four short years.

II.

And I have also grown in all these years.
I once had dreams to follow after Christ,
But at college, once I joined the freshmen class,
My vocation vanished as I watched my knowledge grow.
I forsook the collar despite my mom's advice
And now I try my hand at writing poems.

III.

As a kid I wrote a series of poems
Whose subject never failed to be Christ.
I kept that reverent practice up for years
And solicited from my teachers their advice.
I was the star of catechism class,
But my poetic talent did not grow.

IV.

My Catholic belief also ceased to grow
The day I put my stock in soldiers of Christ
Who had been practicing their trade for years,
The Jesuits, always ready to give advice
To help us write ecclesiastical poems
As exercises of our faith in class.

V.

And now I sit in front of my own class,
The last I'll have in all these many years,
And sure enough they're all here writing poems.
In their verse they offer sage advice
To juniors who haven't had the chance to grow
Into duplicates of martyred Christ.

VI.

That's how seniors moan each year, "Oh, Christ!
What are you doing having us write poems?
We've spent our time, going on four years,
And you still think we have some room to grow!
Well let us give you a word of sage advice.
We can't spent all our time on this one class."

VII.

Yes, Christ! I've come full circle with this class.
For poems I've simply run out of advice.
After all these years I'm the one who's ceased to grow.

--James D. Starkey