Incremental Poetry ~ 49 Lines

I Find You in the Stillness

I find you in the stillness of the night,
when I am left alone and deep in thought;
your presence always fits me with a smile—
the fragrance of a blue forget-me-not
comes to me and lingers for a while.
The memory of the way you feel and smell
unshackles me from bonds of my exile;
the freedom I enjoy, to be and tell
whatever secrets lie within my breast,
for through the years I’ve come to know you well,
and being known, I have been truly blessed.
The worst of me I cannot hide from you;
no other friend has seen me at my best.
You are the best of friends, for you are true—
that friendship, dear, we’ll treasure all our days.
One wish I have, and here’s a little clue:
I long to be the one who fuels your blaze,
to keep your spirit hot, on fire for God.
Yet for all this, I do not seek your praise.
And furthermore, I do not think it odd
we’ve come to help each other in this way,
for side by side this path of life we’ve trod,
and side by side with you I wish to stay.
So many years, and yet I long for more,
but we must walk by faith and not by sight.
So many years, and yet I long for more,
and side by side with you I wish to stay,
for side by side this path of life we’ve trod.
We’ve come to help each other in this way,
and furthermore, I do not think it odd.
Yet for all this I do not seek your praise.
To keep your spirit hot, on fire for God,
I long to be the one who fuels your blaze.
One wish I have, and here’s a little clue:
that friendship dear we’ll treasure all our days.
You are the best of friends, for you are true—
no other friend has seen me at my best;
the worst of me I cannot hide from you.
And being known, I have been truly blessed,
for through the years I’ve come to know you well.
Whatever secrets lie within my breast,
the freedom I enjoy, to be and tell,
unshackles me from bonds of my exile.
The memory of the way you feel and smell
comes to me and lingers for a while—
the fragrance of a blue forget-me-not.
Your presence always fits me with a smile.
When I am left alone, and deep in thought,
I find you in the stillness of the night.

Copyright © 2019 Abigail Gronway – All Rights Reserved

Welcome to my series, Incremental Poetry, where each week (or as often as I am able) the featured poem will be one line longer than the one I shared the week before. As the poems get longer, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to keep up the weekly pace, especially when I have to search high and low for a form that employs the set number of lines. But I am nothing if not tenacious. (My husband calls it stubborn.) And so I will keep pressing on toward my goal of a 100-line poem, even if there are weeks of silence between my compositions. As always, thank you kindly for stopping by.

Scansion:
Tuanortsa
This is a trick poem, and in particular, a palindromic poem. A word as a palindrome may be read either forwards or backwards (i.e. radar, level, eye). A poetic palindrome is slightly different. Some make sense when the words are reversed within the sentence, while others make sense when entire lines are reversed. The latter is the case for this form, the Tuanortsa. (By the way, I have no idea where the name came from. It is astronaut spelled backwards, but that word is by no means a palindrome.)
Meter and rhyme are at the discretion of the poet. The one requirement of the Tuanortsa is that it must be at least six lines long. Actually, it works best when there is an odd number of lines, for then you have a center line, or axis, upon which the poem pivots.

Scansion:

• A minimum of six lines, where the second half of the poem is the reverse of the first half and makes sense when read in either direction.
• Meter and rhythm at the discretion of the poet, but be consistent throughout.
• Rhyme is optional 
  

For this one I wrote 49 lines in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of:
abc bcd cde def efg fgh ghi hij a jih ihg hgf gfe fed edc dcb cba