To You, My Wife
To you, my wife, my love I declare,
My joy and gain, a gift to me blessed,
A morning flower of beauty and flair!
O flesh of mine, this heart you repair,
Whenever sadness tramples my rest;
To you, my wife, my love I declare.
Your lips of honey with me you share,
I cherish nights your softness I quest,
A morning flower of beauty and flair!
Begin each day to true love aware,
Smiling with joy, my fondness to crest;
To you, my wife, my love I declare.
Do hold my hand, let’s walk without care,
With you, I know, that I have been blest,
A morning flower of beauty and flair!
Unending life with you is my prayer,
Eternity sighs the words I’ve confessed;
To you, my wife, my love I declare,
A morning flower of beauty and flair!
Dance of The Maple Seeds
It is their dance that holds my gaze,
These ballerina’s dazzling ways.
They float and whirl when winds abound
As arms reach out to sunny rays.
The breezy part of this fine day
Will hold their hands in this ballet.
This splendid pageant all can view,
While colors liven autumn’s stay.
And though aware that they intrude
On lands and lawns with weeds subdued,
I’m fascinated by their dance,
A dance that ends in life renewed.
I take my leave from this grand hall,
When evening spreads her sable shawl,
But not before the maple seeds
Have shared a graceful day of fall.
These Things
We are so drawn into ourselves,
That life around us nearly fades.
We place these things in hidden shelves,
When daily cares the mind invades.
But when we buy the time to see,
Enjoy what we for granted take,
Appreciative we come to be,
For gifted things that we forsake.
A lofty tree along a lake,
A single cloud in bluish skies;
The sun when evening starts to wake,
An early dawn as darkness flies.
The scent of flowers sprayed by spring,
The lengthened days that summer shares;
The reds that fall to trees will bring,
The gown of down that winter wears.
The moon in stages till it smiles,
The stars applauding twilight plays;
The chorus night performs for miles,
When heaven slowly curtains raise.
The sand that plays with flirting seas,
The spray of crashing waves on rocks;
The soothing touch of ocean breeze,
The joy derived from lengthy walks.
A brightly colored butterfly,
A hummingbird in flawless flight;
A dragonfly that hovers high,
A purple finch that eyes delight.
A hermit thrush of lilting songs,
The precious air that lifts its wings;
The rain that falls where it belongs,
A wondrous home that holds these things.
Angel L. Villanueva is a religious man who resides in Massachusetts, enjoying a simple life with his lovely wife, Nina.
Angel,
I found these appealing, except for “Dance of the Maple Seeds”, because those damn samaras clog the elbow of the downspout of my roof gutter, causing me borrow an extension ladder, climb up two storeys and disassemble the thing.
The villanelle is unusual in that most of the lines have four stresses, with pyrrhic feet inserted to bring the syllable count to nine. Usually poets go for iambic pentameter, but it’s dealer’s choice. The perfect rhymes and the repetends are what really defines the form.
In stanza 5 of “These Things” you write, “When heaven slowly curtains raise.” This is an inversion of “When heaven slowly raise curtains.” And so, as you can see, the subject and the verb do not agree. I’m sure this can be easily fixed. I fully understand that when one is dealing with ten different elements at one time, that something might slip out of the net, and with inversions subject/verb disagreement is not so obvious.
C.B., Thank you for your thoughtful and quite constructive comment. I will have to revisit stanza 5 of “These Things” and see what changes can be made while preserving the thought I had in mind.
I do know what you mean about the troublesome maple seeds. I did not consider the clogging of gutters when writing “Dance of The Maple Seeds’, just the annoyance presented to those who labor on well-kept lawns. They do get everywhere, that’s for sure.
I appreciate your thoughts on the villanelle. It is my first attempt at writing in this form. Hopefully, it won’t be the only one I write.
Thanks again!
Unlike C.B., I don’t have the problem of winged maple seeds clogging my gutters. Gum leaves are another story!
“Dance of The Maple Seeds” appealed to me in particular due to the extended metaphor likening maple seeds to ballerinas. This metaphor was appropriate as it afforded a visually clear image.
Thank you, David. There are so many things in nature we would consider to be annoying, yet there is beauty even in these. I appreciate the comment.
I get it, David. In a way, the eucalyptus in Australia must be as pesky as the Maple is here in North America, but I would hate to put ballerinas on my hit-list. I would only hope that they would do their thing on someone else’s property, and leave my gutters alone.
Fair enough C.B. Maple seeds and eucalyptus leaves are both a chore to clean. Eucalyptus leaves also present a significant fire hazard.
David, I suppose that the fire hazard is due to the fact these leaves contain volatile oils (namely, eucalyptus oil), and if they are very dry then they are nothing more or less than tinder.
Exactly C.B. Gum leaves are easily ignited by wind-borne embers due to their oil content.