Past or Soon: A Villanelle

Heather Lee
1 min readJan 30, 2023

Poetry| Writing

I have always been more comfortable working with poetry that comes with structure and rules. The rules for a villanelle are as follows:

· 5 tercets which follow an A B A rhyme scheme

· 1 quatrain which follows an A B A A rhyme scheme

· 2 refrains

Enjoy!

A red sun peaks over dark mountains making the sky turn red and orange.
Photo taken by Daughter

Past or Soon: A Villanelle

Silent dawns whisper beware

I, like a rabbit, ears raise

Past or soon, something is there.

Must control my desperate stare

Brush it off’ life’s confused maze

Silent dawns whisper beware.

I have, I need, to prepare

Mounting anxiety plays

Past or soon, something is there.

Did I miss it? Was it here?

I don’t know which way to gaze

Silent dawns whisper beware.

Protect those for whom I care

Direction? So many ways

Past or soon, something is there.

I didn’t know I’d end here

The rabbit no longer stays

Silent dawns whisper beware

Past or soon, something is there.

A wild brown rabbit hops off a walking trail and into the green woods.
Photo taken by Daughter

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Heather Lee
Heather Lee

Written by Heather Lee

One white cane in a sighted world

Responses (2)

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A wonderful poem. I especially like how the repetition adds to the rhythm of the lines and to the rhyme scheme.

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I liked this a lot. Thank you for opening my eyes to something new. And the photo is cute too.

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