A Villanelle (yep, it's as bad to write it as it is to pronounce it!) & Another Nature Poem

It's been a very busy summer and frankly, I feel emotionally and physically wiped out.  I just got home from a final, am cooking dinner and felt like posting a little poetry, which, sadly I have neglected this summer.  After coming home today, I got a big hug from Nate (Matt and Em were glue to HP #4).  Nate always makes me feel better.  I wrote this poem this spring as I saw many people suffering around me--Nate had a way of bringing sunshine to a cloudy day.

The poem is a villanelle, a form poem with a strict rhyming and structure sceme.  I tend not to write these but I appreciate the challenge it presents to mold my words to a form.  With this one, you basically build your poem around 2 lines that are repeated and each line is bound to a rhyme...so, here it is:

When Heaven Cries

A Villanelle

Rain softly falling, soaking moist earth.

My son asking if heaven is crying,

the words of comfort are stuck in my throat.

There’s much to cry about—a suicide

last night.  Because of cancer, Grandmas is dying.

Rain softly falling, soaking moist earth.

Divorce, abuse, aching from the inside

of my sad soul, no purpose in trying.

The words of comfort are stuck in my throat.

My son’s hand in mine, a soft place to hide

adult sorrows while my tears are drying.

Rain softly falling, soaking moist earth.

Then he speaks my name, pointing me outside

where grey yields to rainbow colors plying.

The words of comfort are stuck in my throat.

Like I mentioned, it's been a sparse summer for poetry due to a very busy life.  This weekend, the kids and I packed up and met Justin in Bryce Canyon (along with my parents and my brother and his family) to watch Justin ran a half-marathon.  He had been gone all week at scout camp so it was great to be together again.  I did have a moment when twilight began creeping up the hillside and I tasted poetry...  Free-verse nature poetry is my favorite thing to write.  I tried to capture the stillness in the evening. I intentionally played with sound a bit by using a lot of soft alliteration. :)  In revision, I'm thinking about turning this to a meditation on mortality, but here is what I have so far.

Mountain Twilight

Softly soaking in the stillness,

crested pines, centennials of God’s

majesty, are signing at day’s end. 

Smoke spills from crackling

campfires rising, permeating pointed

cones, swirling through netted

needles, drifting heavenward in

fading light of the setting sun.

Stars sprinkle the creamy horizon,

swirls of color, spreading onto

God’s vast canvas.  Sleep steals

across darkening skies,

whispering in our ears, stroking

tired eyes with measured hand.