At the Fulcrum of the Day: A Raccontino

If you're like me, you had to look up a raccontino to know what it was. Or, more precisely, I had to scramble to Miss Rhumpius's blog to find out that it's a poem that is:

• composed of couplets (any number)
• even number lines share the same end rhyme
• the title and last words of the odd numbered lines tell a story

The Poetry Seven had different approaches to this form. Some wrote their end line sentence first. Others came up with a theme first. Me? I wrote a non-rhyming poem, made it rhyme and then played with the odd numbered end words and line breaks to form a story sentence.  

As one of our group said of my method: Impossible. 

Heh. Well, I will admit that I didn't mind toying with the couplets or jiggering the rhyme scheme, but moving those end words around into a sentence was killer for me.  It felt wrong to be messing with how I shaped the poem originally.  I like my line breaks to be my line breaks!

But it all came right in the end. 

at the fulcrum of the day

I watch my children as the tides, escaping,

inch by inch, until they are fanned

out, too far out; I call to them: mind the time!  

Thin as a needle, I rise, slow to expand—

How closely sliced are the minutes, as onions shaved

to transparency; I see them, as near as my hand;

I have only seconds before noon slips into 

afternoon; blocks of hours eroded to sand.

Soon it is before supper; Beyond is the dusk

and the night; the tide I can withstand

But great God, let the sun balance, never-ending—

Wait there, wait there! I call as l stand.

---Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Amy at The Poem Farm. The other raccontinos--by each of the Poetry Seven--can be found here:

Tricia 

Laura

Andi

Liz

Kelly

Tanita