x-posted to greatpoets

[fflo]

They're talking about villanelles. Who doesn't love a good villanelle?

The one I once tried valiantly to finish writing right was about insomnia, appropriately enough. Seemed like an appropriate subject for the form, too. Anyway, here's Marilyn's:

Villanelle for D.G.B.

Every day our bodies separate,
exploded torn and dazed.
Not understanding what we celebrate

we grope through languages and hesitate
and touch each other, speechless and amazed;
and every day our bodies separate

us farther from our planned, deliberate
ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,
not understanding what we celebrate

when our fused limbs and lips communicate
the unlettered power we have raised.
Every day our bodies' separate

routines are harder to perpetuate.
In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,
not understanding what we celebrate;

wake to ourselves, exhausted, in the late
morning as the wind tears off the haze,
not understanding how we celebrate
our bodies. Every day we separate.

-- Marilyn Hacker