A Villanelle

A few years back, I was challenged by a friend to write a villanelle. The strict form was a struggle for me, but a villanelle I wrote, and I still think it a pretty poem. I'd like to share it with you today. If you are interested in the form, I encourage you to seek out villanelles by master poets and explore what they have been able to do with it.

villanelle

n. a villanelle is a poem consisting of five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by a quatrain (four-line stanza). The tercets have a rhyme scheme of ABA, the quatrain a rhyme scheme of ABAA. The first and third lines of the first stanza repeat throughout the poem and make up the final lines of the quatrain.

My Pen by Eris Cardin

Swift and steady like spring rain,

Dancing 'cross the black-lined pages,

Telling tales of love and pain.

Weaving words of hope and shame,

Telling tales of countless ages,

Swift and steady like spring rain.

Memories of ancient strain,

Told and held by lore-marked sages

Telling tales of love and pain.

Burning rage and loving flame,

Breaking through all human cages,

Swift and steady like spring rain,

To write these tales now I am fain,

Portray life's shifting stages,

Telling tales of love and pain.

So 'cross my black-lined notebook pages,

My pen is tracing tales of ages,

Swift and steady like spring rain,

Telling tales of love and pain.

(Photo credit to Art Lasovsky on Unsplash)