It wasn’t that she’d never learned
to demonstrate her love for him,
but every time she tried, it turned
into a situation grim—
he felt neglected, she felt burned.
The love they shared had turned to hate;
they nearly went their separate ways.
A trusted friend then set them straight
and taught them on their strengths to gaze—
they learned how to communicate.
Each wrote a list of deep desires,
requests for love, and not demands;
they burned communication’s briers,
in meeting needs, they two joined hands—
now warm beside each other’s fires.
Copyright © 2020 Abigail Gronway – All Rights Reserved
Quintilla
a 16th-Century Spanish quintain with a rhyme scheme that is more about what cannot be done than what can be done
Metered: iambic tetrameter
Isosyllabic: 8 syllables per line
Stanzaic: may be written in any number of cinquains
Rhyme scheme: only 2 rhymes may be used, and it may not end in a rhyming couplet
Rhyme options: ababa, abbab, abaab, aabab, or aabba
Additional stanzas use distinct rhyming sounds.
When written as a decastich, the verse is known as Copla Real.
