A Moveable Garden

Part of my Feb 2024 Dream Poems project.

This is a poem, in the form of a villanelle, that I first wrote in 1993, and here I’ve added a tercet to make it the full 19 lines of a traditional villanelle.

VILLANELLE OF THE SOUTH (1993/2024)

In dreams are sung the fragrance of lost sound,
Sound lost to timeless sleeping, primal shrine —
We dream this honeyed air and sweet are drowned.

Magnolia lush in lemon, blackbird crowned,
Cries darkly through the echoed serpentine:
In dreams are sung the fragrance of lost sound.

Wings shadowed full with memory surround,
Pecan gone praline, live oak swaying vine,
We dream this honeyed air and sweet are drowned.

Wax myrtles resin-seeping stir, compound, 
Jasmine creep the while risen nighthawks whine.  
In dreams are sung the fragrance of lost sound.

Night slips beyond a cypress strand unwound,
Night sighs before a moonless timberline;
We dream this honeyed air and sweet are drowned.

Asleep we breathe remembered sense unfound,
Choke cherry, soft wisteria our wine,
We dream this honeyed air and sweet are drowned.
In dreams are sung the fragrance of lost sound.

© M Wms 1993/2024