The silver pine is lit with strands of blue,
a robin's tucked beside the window sill.
Tonight is Christmas Eve, I'll think of you.
My kitchen is aglow, the baking through.
A scent of ginger cookies warms the chill,
the silver pine is lit with strands of blue.
Each greeting card is propped up for review
and presents form a multicolored hill.
Tonight is Christmas Eve, I'll think of you.
Small rose-lipped children warm their hands and view
the fire, little toes are pink and still.
The silver pine is lit with strands of blue.
Knit stockings on the mantle hang askew
with plastic toys and candy canes that spill
across their rims. And all the songs we knew
and learned throughout the years, seem ever true
around this joyous season of goodwill—
when silver pines are lit with stands of blue
and every Christmas Eve I think of you.
First one
The sliver pine is lit with strands of blue,
a robin's tucked beside the window sill.
Tonight is Christmas Eve, I'll think of you.
My kitchen is aglow, the baking, through.
A scent of ginger cookies warms the chill,
the silver pine is lit with strands of blue.
Each greeting card is propped up for review
and presents form a colored, layered hill.
Tonight is Christmas Eve, I'll think of you.
Small rose-lipped children warm their hands and view
the fire, little toes are pink and still.
The silver pine is lit with strands of blue.
Knit stockings on the mantle hang askew
with plastic toys and candy canes that spill
across their rims. And all the songs we knew
and learned throughout the years, seem ever true
around this joyous season of goodwill—
when silver pines are lit with stands of blue
and every Christmas Eve I think of you.
Hi Karen - how are you surviving the snow here in UK?
I like this seasonal villanelle - a form I've never tried. You've done a good job here!
Thanks for the suggestions, Eira. I liked "multicolored."
Glad you are having a nice holiday...yeah you should try one of these,
this is my forth one, I can only do a few a year because
they drive me crazy!
K
Greetings, Karen...
It's been so long since I've written a villanelle. I must do it again soon. You've met the challenge very well, and I love the variation on each of the two lines in the closing couplet.
I'm sure that you know that you abandoned the pure form in your fifth tercet, totally eliminating Tonight is Christmas Eve, I'll think of you. That, of course, may well strengthen the piece as a stand-alone poem, even though technically it becomes rather a variation on a villanelle.
deLighting in your excellent meter and consistent rhyme, Daniel
P.S. Since this is a WORKSHOP, it is always most helpful NOT to merely revise your piece without notation, but rather to post your original piece intact beneath your revision, so that each participant can watch the revision and learn along with you! Please consider doing that, would you?
Hi Karen,
I see Daniel already suggested "Villanelle Variation" as your piece does not comply with the rigid standards of the Villanelle. I've read it a few times and have found only one other minor metric blip. Line 2 in your 4th tercet is short one syl. Suggest adding "their" before little toes are pink and still. This should make the whole piece penta-perfect.
Loved the picture you have painted. Hope you are not getting that horrid flooding rain where you live.
Larry
Hi Daniel,
No problem I can do that with the poems, just repost each version above the other.
Glad you didn't see too much wrong with it.
Thanks-
Karen
Hi Larry,
Thanks for checking it all. The word "fire" always throws me, in this
poem I chose to drag out the word to sound like Fi-re and I fiddled
with it both ways, as one syllable and two. Anyway- I'm open on that.
Glad you liked it - I've been in England the past 2 weeks so I missed the rain,
I'm near Eira...and was buried in snow! Going home to rain, I think...
Karen
Karen,
though I had read the two-syllable 'fie-uhr' along with you, which I often use myself, I believe that making the addition that Larry suggests would make it more universally read without a hiccup. You also need to add a semicolon, or you have a run-on.
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