Catena Rondo Verse Form

This form is not as simple as I first thought it was. Serves me right for just skimming over the descriptions instead of reading them fully. LOL

The Catena Rondo is another form invented by fellow Canadian Robin Skelton. He got the name by combing catena, meaning chain, with rondo, meaning circle. The quatrains making up this form repeat, bringing it full circle.

This a stanzaic form, which lends itself very well to longer poems because of the repetition of lines. It’s written in quatrains (four line stanzas). The first line and the last line of each quatrain is the same. The second and third lines rhyme. The second line of each quatrain becomes the first line of the following quatrain until the final quatrain, which is the first quatrain repeated.

Your Catena Rondo can be about whatever you wish. And there is no set syllable count, which makes it a little difficult to create a schematic, but I’ll do one using a six syllable version. The capital letters are the repeated lines:

xxxxxA
xxxxxb
xxxxxb
xxxxxA

xxxxxB
xxxxxc
xxxxxc
xxxxxB

xxxxxC
xxxxxd
xxxxxd
xxxxxC

xxxxxA
xxxxxB
xxxxxB
xxxxxA

I swear, it took me longer to come up with a start to my example than to write the example itself. Could the well be running dry? Oh, look, that could be the subject for another poem. I should write it down. :-D

Anyway, once I got going I found I really enjoyed writing in this form. I like the way the verses flow into each other because of the repetition. Seriously, you should give it a try!


Magic’s Price

Magic flows like water
within the circle of stone.
When I am all alone
magic flows like water.

Within the circle of stone
there is no escape for me,
I look to the stars and plea
within the circle of stone.

There is no escape for me,
I’ve brought this on myself
defying time itself—
there is no escape for me.

I’ve brought this on myself
for trying to change my fate
and knocking on hell’s gate—
I’ve brought this on myself.

For trying to change my fate
I’m taking my last breath.
My punishment is death
for trying to change my fate.

Magic flows like water
within the circle of stone.
When I am all alone
magic flows like water.

Spreading the Love

Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it all into words is all that is necessary.
— Margaret Cousins

Everyone wants to be appreciated, so if you appreciate someone, don’t keep it a secret.
— Mary Kay Ash

You get a good review, and it’s like crack. You need another hit. And another. And another. I know authors are like Tinkerbell and generally need applause to survive, but it’s a slippery slope.
― Alexandra Bracken

When was the last time you showed appreciation to someone for something they did? Of course, we do it all the time. When someone does something for us we thank them. Not just because it’s common courtesy, but because we appreciate that they took the time and trouble to do it.

Now, when was the last time you told a writer how much you appreciate the book they wrote?

I thought as much. Don’t worry, I’m guilty of the same thing. And this is something I’ve regretted over the years because I keep saying I’m going to, but I don’t. And now it’s too late to show my appreciation to a couple of my favorite authors – they died without knowing how much their books meant to me.

I don’t know what it is about showing appreciation to an author that’s so difficult. We’ll tell a friend or family member how much we loved a book, but rarely tell the author themselves. It’s a wonder any of us keep writing.

In the old days you could write your favorite author fan mail. These days it would be email, so much quicker and easier and you don’t have to make a trip to the post office. Some people show their appreciation by writing fan fiction, where they like a story so much that they never want it to end, so they continue it on their own. A prime example of this is the Shades of Grey series, that started out as fan fiction for the Twilight series.

Of course the sales help. When those sales figures go up an author knows they’re doing something right. Nothing says I love you like someone paying full price for the book you slaved over. I have to wonder though how Stephanie Myers felt about those sales figures from the Shades of Grey series creeping up towards those of Twilight.

Have you ever written a book review? I used to do that on a regular basis on a different blog (which is long gone now), and one of the perks of that was when publicists started sending me books to review. So many free books! But I only accepted books I intended to read, figuring it unethical to do otherwise.

Reviews are another way to show appreciation. I keep track of the books I read on the Goodreads site, and I’ll usually leave a quick little review when I add a book to my “read” list, but I never think to add the review to Amazon, where ratings are everything. And there’s no reason for me not to, other than sheer laziness.

So next time you read a book you really enjoy, let the author know. Send them some fan mail, or better yet, leave a review. I know I’m going to start trying to do so.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
I’m starting to see a pattern here. My weeks start out strong, and then somewhere in the middle they just seem to get away from me. Or they kind of peter right out. It’s a little bit frustrating!

Monday was a really good day – a nice balance between writing and stitching and reading. But Tuesday I had some medical stuff going on, and then I figured since the day was pretty much a write-off anyway, I might as well drive up to Peterborough to drop off the car load of donations I had.

Wednesday there was some unexpected socializing, which really threw what was left of my schedule off. Thursday I had a coffee date with a friend, which I might not have made if I’d known Wednesday afternoon was going to be a write-off.

By Friday my ambition had kind of deserted me. I worked in my office, but didn’t get much done. I fixed the poem I’d done for my “poemwork” . . . yeah, that was about it. In my defense, though. I’d like to point out that we’re deep into allergy season and my head has been hurting on a daily basis.

But also Friday, I had the final installment of The Pond up. I probably could have split it into two, but I really wanted to end at part 40. And I was getting a little tired of it. And despite the fact that it seems a little rushed, it did end the way I’d always intended it to.

And the really good news is, I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out what my next serial is going to be. It’s a strange story I had the idea for many, many years ago, loosely based on a poem I did that personified winter.

Should be something a little different.

NEW WORDS:
2205+633+427+1099=4,364
DOWN – 85 words from last week

Down a little bit from last week, despite the rather lengthy post on Friday. But I’m still not tempted to include my morning pages (which I’ve been doing faithfully) because first, they’re hand written and I’d have to either count the words myself or type them out, which seems a little redundant, and second, I don’t know how creative they are really, they’re more just angsty, whiny, rants. :-D

But I have to admit, sometimes my morning pages are a bit of a struggle. Not because I don’t have anything to write about, but because I’ve been getting distracted lately. I come downstairs and sit in my recliner to do them before I go to the gym, but the kittens lately have decided to start going after my plants, breaking my train of thought when I have to chase them away from them. Maybe I need to sit at the dining room table, or go into my office to do them.

I did spend more time in my office last week, but I forgot the advice from one of the workshops where the instructor said to take a 5 minute break every 25 minutes or so. My office chair is not as comfortable as my recliner, so sitting in it for long stretches at a time becomes really uncomfortable.

Goals For Next Week:
Find a workable routine to generate more words.

EDITING:
0 hours

One of these days I’m going to surprise the heck out of everyone and actually have something to report here. And no, I’m not going to remove it from my wordage report due to lack of updating like I did the marketing and tech. This is something I really want to get done, I just keep getting . . . distracted.

I know I said I wasn’t going to split my master list into sub-lists, but maybe I need to at least make a list of all the writing projects I want to do. A lot of the time with me it’s “out of sight, out of mind,” but if I have a list to consult then I won’t forget. And maybe I won’t waste as much time on games and surfing – I can work on something from that list instead.

Goal For Next Week:
Figure out the prophecy; get editing Elemental Spirit.

POETRY:
I found last week’s form, the Octo, kind of interesting, despite the lack of information about it and the fact there is another form with the same name. And I liked the two examples I wrote for it.

There was supposed to a poetry gathering last Wednesday, but it ended up being cancelled at the last minute. I’ll spare you the details of the miscommunication revolving around it, but in the end I was just as happy I had more time to work on my “poemwork.” I really had to scramble to get my poem finished, and it certainly wasn’t my best work, but I was able to fix it now, and while it’s not perfect, it’s a lot better.

I was inspired to start a new poem that was neither a form nor poemwork yesterday. The bones of it are there, but whether or not I flesh it out remains to be seen. It’s a little morbid. I may finish writing it anyway, just for me.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share. Expand on the other poems I started.

CRAFTING:
I finished the first square of my zentangle sampler and I’m debating what to do with the second one. I don’t want them all to look the same, so I’m thinking of doing an actual picture in the next square instead of a true zentangle.

To be honest, I didn’t really give much thought to the overall design/theme when I started, which I’m beginning to see I should have. The first square is fine, but it was a bit of a pain to figure out what stitch to use next each time I finished a section. But if I do 9 squares altogether, I can do one square in each row something other than a zentangle design.

Like, this row I can do just a scene of some kind. The next row I can do an appliqué, and the third row I could do stumpwork or something like that. Or maybe just to keep the look of it even, I could do two appliqués, one on each side, in the middle row and then the stumpwork in the center of the bottom row.

Lots of things to consider, I guess. But I need to consider them soon because I don’t want to lose my momentum.

My baker’s rack is all trussed up and ready to go, but getting it here is turning out to be a bigger issue than we counted on. My father-in-law has not been able to get a hold of the neighbor who’s got the truck, and I’m pretty sure we’re going to need a couple of extra bodies to help move it. It doesn’t look like much all trussed up, but trust me, that sucker is heavy! As well it should be considering it’s made of wrought iron and wood.

The art supplies I got from my father-in-law are just going to have to join the rest of my stash for now. I want to get my routine with the writing and crafting well established before I add art into the mix. Once I get my baker’s rack in place I want to get back into my jewelry making and bead work, something I can’t really do right now, especially with a pair of nosy kittens around (I can close the door to my craft room to work).

Goal For Next Week:
Figure out a layout for my sampler; start thinking about the granddaugher’s dress for this year’s father/daughter ball.

WHAT I’M READING:
I haven’t been doing as much reading lately. I’m still reading The Little Flower Shop, by Lori Foster – I’m about halfway through it.

And I’m ashamed to admit that I slacked off a bit on the bike riding, but I still managed to read Glacial Eyes, by J.K. Walker, and I’ve started Rule of Three, by Kelly Jamieson.

I did figure out how to upload new books to my Paperwhite, but I have no idea which ones are new and which were already on there. My old Kindle was having issues updating, so even though I was downloading books, they weren’t being uploaded. And I have no idea how many books, or what date, I stopped updating to the old device.

And there’s no option (at least not one I could see) for “update all new books” so I have no idea where I’m at as far as being up to date. Does that make any sense?

Goal For Next Week:
See if I can figure out how to put books in folders on the Paperwhite.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

I have my stitch-in at the library on Tuesday and a blood test on Thursday next week, and that’s it. Hopefully there won’t be any unexpected visitors and I have no coffee plans. However, as I’ve seen in the past, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to have a more productive week.

For one thing, I need to get my garden in. Yes, that’s right, I still haven’t done that. I don’t even have bedding plants in the front garden. That’s because we were still getting frost warnings. It’s almost June, for crying out loud!

But while the long-range forecast isn’t exactly promising summer temperatures, at least the temperature isn’t supposed to drop so drastically at night. So at the very least I’ll be putting in some gardening time.

I need to make a little more time for crafting this week. You know, once I settle on the overall design for the sampler. I’m actually starting to wonder how it would look if I alternated sampler squares with picture squares. Might be a little more cohesive looking. *sigh* Decisions, decisions.

I’d like to get a little more creative with my writing. I’m not sure yet if this is going to be the meditative writing, or maybe a prompt a week, or maybe a combination of the two. Or maybe it can even be following the lessons in some of the writing books I have. Or, heaven forbid, accessing some of those courses I’ve paid for.

Here, again, is another reason to keep a writing specific list. I write down all these ideas for progress here, but then I promptly forget about them.

I can see the track and it’s getting closer, but there are still a lot of weeds to cut through before I’m able to step back on it.

The Pond – The End

Fifty-three years had passed between the time Izolda sacrificed her magic to cast the spell of forgetting and when she drew her last breath. The spell unravelled, what was done was undone. In the city far away, Michael Anton, formerly Mikhail Antonovich, woke with a start. Something was wrong, something . . .

Carefully, so as not to disturb his wife, he slipped out of bed and went downstairs to pour himself a drink. There were thoughts, memories he had forgotten, crowding his mind. An overload of information that he wasn’t sure how to deal with.

“Michael?” His wife’s voice came from the doorway. “Is everything all right?”

“It’s nothing. Go back to bed Sophie.”

She sat down beside him on the sofa. “It must be something to have you sitting in the dark, in the middle of the night, drinking vodka.”

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” he mumbled. “Hell, I think I’m crazy.”

“Try me.”

“All right. Fine.” He tossed back the rest of his drink. “I had a dream about my mother.”

“You mean your Aunt Anya?”

“No, I mean my real mother. I always thought I’d been sent to live with Aleksander as a punishment, that my real parents hated me. But now . . .” He paused and poured himself another drink.

“My mother came to me in a dream,” he said abruptly. “She told me she loved me, that it broke her heart to send me away but she was trying to protect me.”

“Protect you? Protect you from what?”

“My family is under a curse. We are being stalked by a being of great evil.”

Sophie kept silent as he paused to take another drink.

“I once had a brother and a sister,” he added.

“I didn’t know that, why have you never mentioned them to me before?”

“This evil – thing – killed them and my mother was afraid she hadn’t sent me far enough away to protect me, so she cast a spell to make everyone forget I was her son. And to make me forget I had another family.”

“Wait a minute,” Sophie said. “Are you saying your mother was some kind of a witch? That’s crazy!”

“Crazy, perhaps, but true nonetheless. My mother was a powerful ved’ma. But she is dead now, and came to me in a dream to warn me that with her death the spell she cast was broken, and that the evil would be coming for me.”

Sophie was quiet for a moment. “That was some dream, Michael. No wonder you were spooked. But it was just a dream. Come back to bed now.”

“You go ahead,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

Though he did join his wife back in bed, Michael did not get any more sleep that night. And three weeks later his wife found him in his armchair in the living room, quite dead. Because it was so unexpected, an autopsy was performed. No one could explain why Michael’s lungs were filled with water.

Their son, Peter, came to stay with his mother and help her get Michael’s affairs in order. The home office was a mess, stacks of paper everywhere, but Peter went through them page by page. He picked up a sheaf of papers and skimmed them over with a frown.

“Mother,” he called out. “What do you know about this property Dad owned?”

“I know that it’s cursed,” she claimed, taking the papers from him. “We will have nothing to do with it.”

No matter how much he pressed her, she would say no more about it. The matter was dropped until her passing, two years later, and he came across the papers again. He scoffed at the idea of a curse and went to investigate it for himself.

He was gone for three days, and when he returned he began acting peculiar, muttering about water spirits and making sacrifices. He was sent to Sunshine Acres, a high class sanitarium, where he began drafting papers that would turn the Antonovich property into a wild life preserve. Unfortunately, he was found face down in the reflecting pond before the papers could be filed.

The land was passed on to his son, James, the last of the Antonovich family. He’d been estranged from his father for years, and had no idea they had owned such a large chunk of prime real estate.

The first thing he did was put a stop to the proceedings to turn it into a sanctuary. Then he decided to visit it himself. The towering trees of the old growth forest were impressive, as was the amount of acreage that bordered the river. The old mill had seen better days, but he had a friend who was an architect, and another who was a structural engineer. The building would make an impressive inn, if it was feasible.

Visions of an exclusive resort filled James’ head as he continued to explore. He found the pond by accident. It was badly overgrown, but he could see the potential for an attractive water feature.

There was a ripple in the water and he squinted to get a closer look. It looked like . . . it couldn’t possibly be a woman out there, could it?

“Are you all right?” he called out.

Turning to face him, she said, “I’m fine. The water is lovely, why don’t you join me?”

She was beautiful. She was slender and curvy, and the sun filtering through the trees gave her long dark hair a greenish cast. The water was clear enough he could see she was naked. James was not one to let an opportunity pass him by. He quickly stripped down to his shorts and waded into the warm water.

“My name is Katrinka,” she told him, wrapping her arms around him. “And I’ve been waiting for you.”


THE END

The Octo Verse Form

Usually when I settle on a form of the week, I like to try and find several sources of information about it and then distill it all down to something that makes sense. I have to tell you, wording really matters when it comes to this form.

“Octo Verse Form” gave me a couple of hits, one of which was a WiX site with a totally different version of this form. There were several sites listed with a definition for an Octastich, which is basically an eight line poem. And if you leave off the word “form” from your search, you get a pile of listings for an Octoverse software.

So then I tried to do a search for the creator of it, James Neille Northe, and I discovered he’s an American educator who also invented the Cinquino (another poem I could find very little about).

Anyway, as the name implies, the Octo Verse is an octastich, which means it’s an eight line poem. As well, all of the lines are eight syllables each. The nice thing about this poem is, it doesn’t rhyme. However (you just knew there had to be a catch, didn’t you?) at the same time, if you do a schematic it kind of does rhyme, because lines are repeated. The first line repeats as the last line, line two repeats as line seven, and line three repeats as line six. Lines four and five are kinda just there.

Here's a schematic:

xxxxxxxA
xxxxxxxB
xxxxxxxC
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxC
xxxxxxxB
xxxxxxxA

Despite all the confusion surrounding this poetry form, I kind of liked it. Which is why I wrote two examples. :-)


Poets

Do poets love as others do?
This is something we can ponder
when the candle burns low at night
and words lie still upon the page
while the restless dreaming fills us.
When the candle burns low at night,
this is something we can ponder –
do poets love as others do?


The Greening

The greening has begun again
as it does each year at this time,
when spring slides into the summer
and the days grow longer, brighter,
and the air begins to warm us
when spring slides into the summer
as it does each year at this time.
The greening has begun again.

Editing Your Own Poetry and Writersfest Wrap-up

I need about one hundred fifty drafts of a poem to get it right, and fifty more to make it sound spontaneous.
― James Dickey

Writing poetry is a passion, ignited by thoughts, fueled by ink. A way to travel through another mind, where souvenirs of tears are tucked away inside your soul. Or leave you with smiles for miles, depending on which route you go.
― Renee Dixon

...when a good poet is confronted with difficult facts that he knows to be true but also are inimical to poetry, he has no choice but to flee to the margins; it was...this very retreat that allowed him to hear the hidden music that is the source of all art.
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

The final workshop I attended at Writersfest, was Editing Your Own Poetry, presented by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek. There was actually a workshop that came after it, but I kind of skipped that one.

Despite the name of this workshop, it never occurred to me to bring a poem with me to edit. My bad! But even if I had, because I work so heavily with forms and the form would have been ruined if I’d followed her suggestions. To be fair, the course description said to “bring your inspired ideas, your phrases, single words, manifestos, dreams and together we will sculpt out a space from which you can learn to edit your own poem.” It did not say to bring a finished poem.

Mostly what we were given was a series of questions about our poems:
Why this form?
In what other forms can this poem appear?
Try changing it to a haiku, limerick, lyric, sonnet – what happens?
What is your poem about?
What else could it be about?
One word – what is your poem about?

Why does this poem need/want to be in the world? What does it do? The space between these two questions is where you edit.

What surprises you about this poem?
Where might the surprise be hiding?
Where’s the volta (the turn of thought or dramatic shift)?
What do you like about this poem?
What does this teach you about your own style?
In what tradition do you write?
How do you mark yours in that tradition?

And unfortunately, that was pretty much it for the notes I took. I did, however, come away with a poem:

Observations From the Fifth Floor

White horses chase
small shard of ice –
the flag snaps to attention –
solid water separates in the harbour
the breath of the current
inhaling the sheets of ice together
and exhaling them apart.
I watch it all safely
from behind the glass.

And thus ends my reports on the Kingston Writersfest Retreat. I was only disappointed in two of the classes, which is not bad, percentage wise. I learned a lot, and more importantly I learned different things than I did at the last one. And I made a few friends along the way.

I took way too much stuff with me, but then you never really know what to take, do you? The weather was cold and rainy, so I stuck pretty much to the hotel and I learned the benefit of staying in the same hotel as where the event was being held. I believe the next one is being held at the Holiday Inn, and you can be sure I’ll be making my hotel reservation in time to stay there.

And yes, I will definitely be going to the next one, which I believe is being held at the end of September. It’s good to get together with other creative people. The workshops offer a wealth of information. And not having to cook or clean for several days isn’t bad either. ;-)

So now, all that’s left is waiting patiently for the tickets to go on sale for the next one.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Last week was . . . interesting. I actually feel like I’m making progress. There was a nice blend of stitchery, reading, and writing, and my best day was Wednesday, my day off.

I was still feeling rather blah, and I was tired of struggling, so I decided to take Wednesday off. I did not go to the gym, and I did not do anything I felt I had to do or needed to do, I just did whatever I felt like doing. And because I gave myself permission to do so, I felt absolutely no guilt.

It was great – I highly recommend it. It’s not something you want to do too often, mind you, or it loses its impact, but every once in awhile I think it’s good for your mental health. You should try it some time!

So what did I do? I did my morning pages, because it’s becoming a habit. I read – not in one big block of time, but at several points between doing other things. I tried a meditation free-writing, like they had us doing to start each session in the retreat I went to a couple of years ago and came away with an interesting beginning to . . . something.

I had a couple of unintentional naps with the kitties and during one of them I was kind of pinned in place, unable to move enough to reach my lap top or even a book. I didn’t really feel like napping myself so I gave my imagination free reign. Next thing you know, I’m trying to ease myself over enough to grab a notebook (without disturbing the cat) so I could write down a two-page summation of a new story idea. So my do-nothing day was probably the best day of the week.

I had to invest in a new lap desk. Dinsdale likes to curl up under it when I’m reclined in my chair with it across my lap. I guess he was feeling a little feisty one day, so he rolled over onto his back and started attacking the padding. Next thing I know he’s pulled it away from the desk part and started ripping into the padding itself. *sigh*

My new lap desk is wider, and it has two folding legs (like one of those trays you can get for breakfast in bed). But it does not have padding, and I only have to use the legs if I want to, which raises the whole thing up higher. I’m sure I’ll get used to it in time.

NEW WORDS:
2779+599+334+737=4,449
UP 957 – words from last week

Up quite a bit from last week, aren’t I? And that doesn’t even include my morning pages, which I’ve been doing faithfully, the two-page idea summation, nor the results of my creative meditation.

I think I need to practice getting back into the rhythm of using the Neo for distraction-free writing. I did start my installment of the Pond on it, but I didn’t get very far and ended up uploading it to the lap top to finish.

The father-in-law came across something rather interesting that he passed on to me. It’s an ancient word processor. I haven’t checked to see if it works yet, but it has a slot for a floppy disk and it comes with its own printer – pretty sure it’s a dot matrix. Even if it works, I’m not sure how much use it’ll be, but I’m sure I’ll have fun checking it out.

Goals For Next Week:
Get all my blog posts done and maybe a few extra words besides.

EDITING:
0 hours
Here’s the thing.

Okay, There’s not really a thing, it’s just me not doing it..

I think Elemental Spirit is like exercising first thing in the morning. I need to stop thinking about it and just do it. The real stickler is the prophecy. If I can just get that worked out then the rest should fall into place. But every time I try, my imagination seems to come up against a brick wall.

And yes, I did put it on my list.

Goal For Next Week:
Figure out the prophecy; get editing Elemental Spirit.

POETRY:
Last week I tackled another Irish form, and lo and behold it didn’t kill me. LOL I guess I just have to be in the right mind set to work on the Irish forms, sometimes they seem harder than others.

I had ideas for a couple of other poems, but I haven’t really done anything with them yet. This is part of my problem – a line or two gets stuck in my head, so I write it down to un-stick it, and then I promptly forget about it until I’m leafing through my writing journal looking for something else and stumble across it again.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share. Expand on the other poems I started.

CRAFTING:
The work is going steadily on my zentangle sampler. I’m just about finished the first square. Now, when we did zentangle with pens, we started out with a box inside a slightly larger box. I stitched the outline of the outer box with my first square, but then I just basted where I wanted the inner box to be.

Now I’m thinking I should have defined the outline better. As in, I should have drawn the second box in and then stitched it was well, perhaps with a different outline stitch. I can still stitch the inner box, of course, but it’s not going to look nearly as good.

And I have good news! I was over at the father-in-law’s yesterday, helping him clean out the room where my baker’s rack is, and the baker’s rack itself. It’s all ready to go, we just have to wait for the guy with the truck and several strong men to help him carry it. That sucker is heavy!

As well as the word processor and a car load of donations, I came away with my mother-in-law’s sewing box, one of those big wooden ones that unfolds into three levels. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it, or just repair it and clean it up and then donate it.

I also ended up with a big box of art supplies – paints, brushes, books. There was a wooden paint box that just needs to be cleaned up a bit. I’ll have to go through it all to determine what can be saved and what should just be chucked.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep working on my sampler; sort through the art supplies I brought home.

WHAT I’M READING:
I finished The Book of Magic, by Alice Hoffman, the final book in the Practical Magic series. And I’ve started reading The Little Flower Shop, by Lori Foster.

I started riding the bike again, so I dug out my Kindle. To my surprise it still had a charge, so I also read A Little Harmless Sex by Melissa Schroeder last week. And . . . when I added it to my Goodreads list I discovered I already read it – 10 years ago.

This is the one thing I don’t like about my Paperwhite – my old Kindle let me organize my books or delete them right on the device. This new one, I can’t even figure out how to update my library, let alone organize it. And the books all stay in some kind of cloud, they’re not stored on my device.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep reading.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

My lists kind of petered out towards the end of the week, so I need to make a concentrated effort to keep them up. They really do work, which is why the first half of my week was more productive than the second half.

I still want to keep up my morning pages, even though they’re still reading like an extended, whinier journal. Maybe it has something to do with writing them first thing in the morning before my brain is awake. It’s too bad I couldn’t write them while I’m still in bed and maybe try and record my dreams, not that I’m remembering them much.

This week is going to be busier – three medical appointments, plus a poetry gathering – but I think with the help of my lists I can stay on top of things. I’m set to finish the Pond this week, the final installment should be a bit of a surprise. I can’t believe no one figured out what Izolda’s spell (after Dmitri died) was all about.

The track still getting closer, one of these days . . .

The Pond - Part 39

Where once the name Nikolai Antonovich had been synonymous with good fortune, now it was being whispered, behind his back, that he and all who dealt with him were cursed. The damage to the mill was not as extensive as it was first believed, all that it would take to get it working again was to replace the grinding wheel, but Nikolai had no interest in repairing it.

“Let it rot,” he said.

“But husband, it was to be your legacy,” Izolda pointed out. “And others depend upon it for their livelihood.”

“Then let these others see to the repairs. It was meant to be a legacy for our son. Our son is gone. My legacy ends here.”

Nothing Izolda said, no plea from those who once worked for him made any difference. He had given up.

For a time some of the men tried to form a kind of co-op, doing the sawing by hand as they had during the drought. But they quickly learned they could not compete with the steam driven mills and gave up.

The workers, friends, who had come to this new land with Nikolai, supporting him through the drought and the accidents had had enough. They took their families and left, seeking work elsewhere. Many of the others followed suit until the village all but dried up. Only a few hardy souls, those who had no where else to go, remained.

Despite the loss of the sawmill Izolda and Nikolai did not suffer greatly financially. They still owned the vast tract of land, and collected rents from the few farms on it. They lived quietly, Nikolai taking comfort in the bottle, and Izolda leading a mundane life. Her magic never returned.

The years passed, they both grew older. Izolda no longer tried to convince Nikolai to leave this place. Without her magic there was no where they could go that the rusalka could not find them. In her own way, she was also broken. This was her punishment for her past misdeeds.

Her mother had warned her years ago that dark magic came with unseen costs, but like so much of what her mother tried to instill in her, she had ignored it. Her children had been gone long enough that she no longer felt the pain of their passing. All she felt was numbness. It was only a matter of time before the rusalka came for her.

She could not stand waiting any longer. The day was hot as she made her way along the overgrown path towards the pond.

“You have won,” she shouted when she reached the edge. “Here I am. You have taken everything else from me, now here I am, for you to take my life.”

“So willing to die.” The rusalka’s voice was a whisper over the water but she did not appear in corporeal form. “But there is still one more thing to take from you yet. There is one who is as guilty as you of betrayal.”

Izolda stood frozen on the pond’s edge. “Nikolai,” she whispered. Turning, she raced towards home.

She knew, before she reached the house, that she would be too late. Nikolai lay sprawled in his chair, a look of surprise on his face, but no fear. There was water spilled on the floor around him and she knew there would be water in his lungs as well.

“Oh, Nikolai,” she said sadly. “How I wish things could have been different.”

Izolda kissed him on the forehead and went slowly up the stairs. There was nothing left inside her. She was empty. Wrapping herself in the quilt her aunts Anya and Polina had given her before she left for her new life she lay down on her marriage bed.

In the pond, the rusalka felt the passing of her mortal enemy, but felt no satisfaction. That came when the life altering spell Izolda cast after Dmitri’s death was broken.

“How deceptive you were, my old friend. What a shame you had not considered that with the release of your spirit your spell would be broken. And such a clever spell at that. It seems my revenge is not complete after all.”

Breccbairdne Poetry Form

Oh, look! Another Irish form. What can I say, I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment. On the other hand, as Irish forms go, this one’s not too heinous.

The Breccbairdne is a very old Irish verse that is written in any number of quatrains (four line verses). But of course it can’t be that simple, can it?

First of all, it’s syllabic, meaning it has a set number of syllables. Line 1 is 5 syllables, and lines 2, 3, and 4 are each 6 syllables. It has a rhyme scheme of a-b-c-b. And just to make it a little different, each line must end in a two syllable word.

Here’s a schematic to help keep things straight:

x x x (xa)
x x x x (xb)
x x x x (xc)
x x x x (xb)

If you wish to make your Breccbairdne a little more challenging, you can add a dunadh. This is where the first word, phrase or line of your poem is repeated at the end, framing the entire poem. But this is purely optional.

I have to tell you, I thought the short lines would be hard to work with, but it was the two syllable end words that I found difficult. Short lines, rhyme scheme, and two-syllable end words? Yeah, this wasn’t what I’d call a fun form.


Dreaming

at night, when dreaming
my thoughts begin swirling,
chaotic and shadowed
while moonlight is whirling

my subconscious stirs,
a dreamscape emerges –
my thoughts soon unwind,
I’m filled with strange urges

to roam and wander
to dance by the seaside
to climb up a mountain
to sleep on a hillside

serious, absurd
my musing keeps streaming
anything is likely
at night, when I’m dreaming