The classroom assignment: Write a villanelle. So I did, and the professor liked it so much, she asked if she could use it in her instructional materials. I was honored. Here it is.
But language trips and falls and stumbles blind.
My words emerge and blink and lose their way.
To take this pen and slash the fog away,
To put on paper what is in my mind --
Inside my head I know what I must say.
A phrase can dance and spin, a child at play,
Or crash about, malformed and misaligned.
My words emerge and blink and lose their way.
My thoughts can soar like hawks at dawn's first ray,
They seek the sun and leave dull earth behind.
Inside my head I know what I must say.
I want to write these thoughts without delay,
But, God! The perfect words are hard to find.
My words emerge and blink and lose their way.
Some words can shine and shimmer bright as day,
Illuminate the dark for humankind.
Inside my head I know what I must say;
My words emerge and blink and lose their way.
copyright Susan Cameron, 1998
