(Week Four) Improvisation #4 of The Villanelle

of Theodore Roethke's "The Waking"

Okay, again, like the sestina: I am in no way ready to write my own villanelle; though I absolutely adore this one.

I'll riff off of this: "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. / I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. / I learn by going where I have to go."



I wake to find the day gone, felled behind other days and lost
between pages on my bookshelf. The pages left alone to dust
and only their stories to keep as company. I wake to find the day
wrinkled in with dirty clothes, tossed among the last dress
I wore for you. That night we drove for hours to find a place
close enough the stars burned shadows on our skin. That night
you painted me into the sky, drove us home. But the next morning
I woke to find you had taken pictures out of their frames, taken
parts of the bathroom and kitchen. Notes to fill in all the space.
I wake to find the day gone, felled behind. I wake to find I am awake.