She justly claims a song from me.
It’s been so long since that sweet day,
Her loving-kindness oh how free.
The stars in distant harmony,
With Sun and Moon in Virgo’s way,
She justly claims a song from me.
My callow eyes then had to see,
Chalk and dinosaurs away,
Her loving-kindness oh how free.
Our adolescent agony:
For her there was no joyful lay,
She justly claims a song from me.
Our years have gone to seventy,
And I will soon be on my way;
Her loving-kindness oh how free.
From mountain pass she blesses me.
Here down on earth, what can I say?
She justly claims a song from me,
Her loving-kindness oh how free.
-
Author:
Robert Southwick Richmond (
Offline) - Published: September 8th, 2023 16:35
- Comment from author about the poem: The final couplet of the poem is borrowed from a poem by Samuel Medley (1738-1799), published 1782, sung to the fuging tune CLINTON (NHoC 66), fugue on these lines, entries BTAS. The metric line is a foot shorter than the traditional villanelle’s, tetrameter rather than pentameter.\r\n\r\nThis poem is for year 70 of a biennial cycle of poems I’ve been writing since I was 16, an occasional poem, commemorating an event that occurred in September 8th, 1953, at the exact moment (I learned many years later) of the conjunction of the Sun and the Moon in Virgo. She went on to die of bacterial meningitis complicating Alzheimer disease, in 2011. Her ashes were scattered in Wilkerson Pass in the Colorado Rockies. – I’ve done some gender-bending on Samuel Medley’s original verses.
- Category: Love
- Views: 5
Offline)
Comments1
You have been away a long time, Robert - good to know we aren't forgotten.
A villanelle isn't an easy form - I found yours moved along smoothly.
I hope to hear from you again.
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