Deep in the samadhi of the old pond
soft heavenly weather arrives, light
seeps into rock, enchanted by the eternal tide.
Peepers rise in a chime of bells
clear, connected by ancient notes
deep in the samadhi of the old pond.
Trees read the vernal signs, bear
the knowledge of arrival, their surge
seeps into rock, enchanted by the eternal tide.
The deer stalks through a fine mist
dark among the black trees, shadows
deep in the samadhi of the old pond.
A redwing’s cry shatters time running
and standing, a tinge of rhyme
seeps into rock, enchanted by the eternal tide
Joy, behind a rise of happy tears
cracks the iron darkness of the heart
deep in the samadhi of the old pond,
seeps into rock, enchanted by the eternal tide.
Shirl McPhillips
I read somewhere that a villanelle is “exquisite torture, wrapped into 19 lines.” Alongside an article about the villanelle online, a man is bent over, head in hands, presumably immersed in the act of trying to compose a villanelle. Fortunately for me, I didn’t know all this before attempting to write one.
A villanelle is a poetic form of 19 lines. It has five tercets (3-line stanzas) and a closing quatrain (4-line stanza). The first three lines are the driving force of the poem, the first and third lines serving as alternate refrains to the other four tercets. The two refrains join to finish the poem as a couplet.
Some folks may wonder why get involved with such a straitlaced form as the villanelle. Or any strict poetic form. Doesn’t following a prescribed set of rules bind one’s thinking? Shut down creativity? Make one frustrated for no good reason? Doesn’t it emphasize form over content, or meaning? Won’t it become a crutch? Who needs form?
Beloved poet Maxine Kumin told a story once about teaching graduate students who asked those very questions (she points out they were taking the course for extra credit). Poetic form was the focus of her class. She loved to write in form and was often frustrated with her students’ reluctance (and sometimes petulance). While teaching Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan,” she wrote what started out to be her “get-even poem,” called “Pantoum, with Swan.” It evolved into something that gave her great satisfaction. “I think the challenges of form,” she wrote, “elicit extraordinary responses. You don’t know what’s going to come.”
In her book Come, Thief, Jane Hirshfield writes a modified villanelle called, “A Hand is Shaped For What it Holds or Makes.” In an interview she says she didn’t think about the form first, “it simply arrived as a villanelle,” the poem needing the voice, recurrences and variations “to work itself deeply through.” A villanelle is “about exactly that unfolding.”
“A Spring Villanelle” began, for me, with reading Basho’s “The Old Pond.” The hope for spring, the magic of it, the mystery. I asked myself what primeval force or pulse lies so deep? Not “in” the pond, but in the … what?…of the pond? The word samadhi came to mind—the highest stage in meditation, in which a person experiences oneness with the universe.
And so the line “Deep in the samadhi of the old pond.” Looking through my current notebook of lines, I came across “enchanted by the eternal tide.” The “eternal tide” became another way of understanding the seasons. I felt the alliteration and the rhythm of the phrase would bear repetition. I said this line aloud because I knew it had to be the ending. It landed well to my hearing of it.
Now, I had to think of an action, something happening “deep in the samadhi of the old pond. Something mystical, miraculous. The beginning of spring. And so it went with a list of other reminiscent signs. And attention to the form, the rhythm, as they support these images. Such a pleasure to arrive at the end of a tercet and find a choice line already waiting for me.
With Hirshfield’s words in mind—If the ear and breathing aren’t awake and engaged, for me, it’s not a poem, it’s just jottings.—I read the lines out loud each time I added a new one. And the whole poem many times, for sound and that enchantment of light that “seeps into rock.”
If you’re intrigued by the villanelle, you might enjoy reading or rereading these unforgettable gems: “The Waking” by Theodore Roethke, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas, and “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop.
Now, why not write a pantoum? You might want to after reading Linda Pastan’s glorious “Something About the Trees.”
