Tears...

The opening stanza to the poem 'Tears', which I wrote in the Winter of 2005 a year after my mother died, are taken from this short poem entitled 'Clown in the Moon' by Dylan Thomas when he was fourteen years old.

Clown in the Moon

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.

by Dylan Thomas



Tears
(A Glosa in the form of a Villanelle)

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift

As though they are a winter's gift
Of unremembered skies and snows.
My tears are like the quiet drift

As falling snowflakes, soft yet swift
Upon the earth in quilted throw;
And all my grief flows from the rift

A simple grave of sorrow's thrift
Where tears, like snowflakes, fell and froze.
My tears are like the quiet drift.

I pray this darkness starts to lift
As shadows, darker, deeper grow;
And all my grief flows from the rift

Each petal from a rose adrift
upon a winding river goes.
My tears are like the quiet drift.
And all my grief flows from the rift.

Copyright © Mary L. Evans

Author's Note:
Roughly speaking, a 'Glosa' is a pre-composed introductory four-line stanza (texto) followed by four improvised décima verses. Each verse ends with one line from the glosa and is an elaboration of the glosa’s theme. It is believed the four-line glosa is of Arabic origin and was invented in the ninth century.

This poem, however, is written in the sytle of a villanelle but incorporates the idea of the Glosa by taking the 'texto' from Dylan Thomas's Clown in the Moon.