A Villanelle on Difficult Love... in Amphibrachs

The villanelle is my go-to for processing emotions that are so dense they can't be untangled in any linear way. And the amphibrach is for me the meter of the spirit, of deep acceptance and renunciation of ego. So although I didn’t think of any of this when i paced the beach in emotional turmoil in Falmouth, Maine, the town I lived in for 13 years while directing the Stoncoast MFA program, the form of the poem, in retrospect, makes total sense to me.

This video shares a happy day years later: a reading at Harold Washington College in Chicago, April 2012, with contributors and coeditor Marie-Elizabeth Mali celebrating the launch of Villanelles from Everymans Library--complete with its little silk bookmark. Came across the video today and realized it had never been shared before; just posted it on youtube for the first time but thought I’d share it here also because the meter makes me happy. After all, August is amphibrach month in Meter Magic Spiral.

(and here’s a special invitation for all the anthology contributors who may see this (and anyone else who would like to) to comment below! I would love to hear from you! xxo Annie)

BEACH OF EDGES

A drift of snow edges a new drift of sand
As edges grow deeper.  It’s March, month of edges.
Wet rocks yield to pebbles like opening hands.

The glisten of rockweed trails, splutters, and bends,
And sparkles of rivulets bounce down in ledges.
A drift of snow edges a new drift of sand;

It’s March, month of edges, and I’m left to stand
Alone outside time as new light pulls and nudges
Wet rocks.  Yield to pebbles like opening hands,

Light; pull me from winter.  How have I planned
For light that’s not winter, for live light that fledges
A drift of snow, edges a new drift of sand

Beyond my last sight, and waves me like a wand
Out back over the surges of these rocking sedges?
Wet rocks yield to pebbles like opening hands;

I want to go back to him, as to the land;
light, carry me over from the wild old grudges.
A drift of snow edges a new drift of sand;
Wet rocks yield to pebbles like opening hands.

From Spells: New and Selected Poems by Annie Finch (Wesleyan University Press, 2013) and Villanelles (Penguin/Random House, 2012). Copyright Annie Finch.