The fog comes on little cat feet
Highwayman comes riding
First loves
In poetry become heartbeat
This love is abiding
Because
The moon’s tossed upon cloudy seas
And meanwhile the wild geese
Fly home
i thank you God, for rhymes like trees
That become gentle breeze
Poem
This week’s W3 challenge is to write a Memento — a poetic form created by Emily Romano. A memento poem captures a holiday, anniversary, or meaningful moment held in memory.
The poem is written in two stanzas. Each of the two stanzas follows this syllabic pattern:
- Line 1: 8 beats
- Line 2: 6 beats
- Line 3: 2 beats
This pattern is repeated once per stanza, for a total rhyme scheme of a / b / c / a / b / c in each stanza.
True story: I wrote a Memento poem about what I thought was the first poem that I ever wrote. My mother had saved the paper witten in my blocky large first grade printing. She told me that it was the first poem I wrote. I always thought it was a pretty darn good poem for a six year old.
Then I fact-checked my mother this morning. I did NOT compose that poem. Oh, I wrote it on a piece of paper and got a gold star from my teacher, but it was not my original words. [sad face]
So, I tried to remember when my love affair with poetry began.
It was probably One Fish, Two Fish by Dr. Seuss. He still influences my writing.
But Carl Sandburg’s poem Fog is the first stand-alone, non-nursery rhyme, non-Dr. Seuss poem that I remember loving.
I memorized The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes a few years later. That was the beginning of my love affair with story poems. We had a book of story poems that included Casey at the Bat and The Cremation of Sam McGee, but I loved the melodrama of The Highwayman.
I found that story-poem book in a box recently. It was in sad shape. Such is the fate of much-loved books.
So what was the first poem I ever wrote? I have no idea.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 