[A sestina whose envoi is a haiku. Something a bit different.]

"Memory"

What is there in the gentle play of leaves

That vault and swirl like dancers, then spiral

Silently back down to earth; when they fall

The whole world seems to die before my eyes,

And when I smell their incense as they burn,

I am transported to another time,

A time when love and laughter in her eyes

Danced like the leaves, and on me they would fall

Like manna, or if I deserved not, burn

Like glowing embers. And now I spiral

Down as my thoughts traverse the vault of time

And in its book turn endlessly dry leaves.

Memory abhors a line, its spiral

Ever circling back; and its sad gyres burn

The tracks they trace yet deeper all the time.

Why do most of my ruminations fall

On holidays? We do not need the leaves

In the old table; there are fewer eyes

That dance in merriment before they fall

On some choice morsel right there all the time.

And now the simple thought of these things leaves

A tear where once was joy, makes my eyes burn

For what they cannot see ― these mortal eyes

That saw your grace descend on a spiral

Staircase would gladly close, so much they burn

To once again possess you. Though memory leaves

The trace that’s like true aloe for my eyes,

That memory itself dissolves with time,

The soft ringlets of your hair, each spiral,

The way they’d play about your face and fall

All lost to the cruel ravages of time.

I cannot be the happy man who eyes

The world unjaundiced; my spirits spiral,

Brown and withered, and no thought of you leaves

Me far from valleys where the shadows fall

Or where the leaves of autumn endless burn.

O time, each one leaves,

My eyes burn; all things spiral

Down, all born must fall.

Regrettably, the three-line envoi is part of the form, Beth. I agree with your thoughts on this matter.