“My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.” - Robert Frost
The prompt from “Poets and Storytellers United” this week is t write a poem in a formal, traditional form. I have chosen the villanelle. (A villanelle is a 19-line poetic form with a specific structure of five tercets (three-line stanzas) and a concluding quatrain (four-line stanza). It features a strict rhyme scheme (ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABAA) and two repeating lines, called refrains, that alternate as the last lines of the tercets and appear together as the last two lines of the quatrain.) It can be quite tricky to write...
Autumn Evening
As evening falls so softly, cold
Memory’s scent I follow,
And life grows dark and old.
Leaves die, as they turn to gold
The sound of voices hollow.
As evening falls so softly, cold
I try to break its stranglehold;
My spirits fall and ebb, so low –
And life grows dark and old.
I try to be so resolute and bold
To make my song again to flow
As evening falls so softly, cold…
The wood attacked, consumed by mould
Decay eats into it so slow,
And life grows dark and old.
My dreams to highest bidder sold
Love’s ghosts in sadness wallow:
As evening falls so softly, cold
And life grows dark and old.
Here’s the poem set to music, and you can find all my music in my “Otidorchestre” channel or listen to it on YouTube, Spotify, Amazon, Deezer, Flo, Pandora, and other music sharing sites.
