My Dad 1967 standing near what was left of his childhood home in Sisseton, South Dakota
My people are all gone away
Leaving me with memories
That live on and stay
Siblings can no longer play
Under the South Dakota trees
They are all gone away
I alone stand today
With active sensories
That live on and stay
Under the heavy clouds of gray
I see them in reveries
They are all gone away
My pen searches to convey
Words filled with remedies
That live on and stay
Reaching to grasp each past day
I stand yet float feathery
They are all gone away
That live on and stay
Villanelle
(“They are all gone away” line taken from:”The House on the Hill” by Edwin Arlington Robinson—a Villanelle Poem)
(“They are all gone away” and “That live on and stay” are two phrases that oppose each other)
#NaPoWriMo 2019–Day 5-Prompt: today we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates at least one of the following: (1) the villanelle form, (2) lines taken from an outside text, and/or (3) phrases that oppose each other in some way. If you can use two elements, great – and if you can do all three,
Leonas Lines--Poetry Plus 