SPRING VILLANELLE – 50 Gms

One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

– Elizabeth Bishop

Two things come to mind.  One: how we’ve all lost so much, and Two: how none of it was really a disaster!! How in god’s good name is that possible???? I think the married couple -Humanity & dilemma live between the two facts!!If only they knew……and If that doesn’t make you smile like Jesus, then sipping the villanelle, thinking about humanity & dilemma as a couple, will definitely bear you an ear-to-ear.

Janis Joplin wrote ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose’. Seems like you’d have to lose everything to have it. Not really. There’s freedom in losing things, even in constraints, as penned in this Villanelle by Elizabeth Bishop. Pretty as they come.

The Villanelle repeats one sound thirteen times, and another six, in a total of 19 lines.  Rhyme and Refrain arranged within a constrained, strict and structured fashion of 5 Tercets and 1 Quatrain to present an idea. Doesn’t allow narration, so there’s no ‘story’ but makes space for figurative development. Instead of a linear development of events, the movement is circular. With Rhyme, within its structure it sounds like lyrics to a song. That’s a Villanelle.

Beauty and constraints together seem counterintuitive just like loss and disaster together seem so intuitive, but isn’t quite so.

The constraints of Spring are in all teas but this one rather ‘chose’ to express itself in a Villanelle, and we were able to recognize it. Almost in deliberation, it seems, without narration and storytelling, the idea of a floral spring, expressed in Rhyme and refrain of its notes. A single floral idea repeated in rhyming flavors, reminding of aromas and tastes, creating moods and emotions, stimulating memories, expressing itself in the most impactful way.

This Spring’s floral theme runs in the rhyme of Honey and Watery sweet fruits. Muskmelons come to mind. The citrous refrain makes its appearance midway and in conclusion. The flavors circulate and circulate, refusing to move forward, until they dissolve, leaving only the delicacy of floral spring beauty experienced in constraints.

Hope, your expressions manifest within your constraints in your Villanelles.