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Earth and Heaven
The points and parsings I take out to drag—
Onto the trail, to slope and nature new—
A cloud descends upon the roving crag.
As black and round as fleas upon a shag
Or roadway gravel rolling in a shoe
The points and parsings I take out to drag—
The weighing of a thought may shoulders flag—
The Tarot Juggler’s trick, and Fool’s ado—
A cloud descends upon the roving crag.
In white-walled cell, and mud beneath to brag
I risk the sink and keep conviction true
To points and parsings I take out to drag.
Laces found in leafless branches gag
The freedom of the air, in grayish hue—
A cloud descends upon the roving crag.
But as the sky revives and laurels wag
And reap the ground, I’ll grit and shiver through
The points and parsings I take out to drag—
When cloud descends upon the roving crag.
Onto the trail, to slope and nature new—
A cloud descends upon the roving crag.
As black and round as fleas upon a shag
Or roadway gravel rolling in a shoe
The points and parsings I take out to drag—
The weighing of a thought may shoulders flag—
The Tarot Juggler’s trick, and Fool’s ado—
A cloud descends upon the roving crag.
In white-walled cell, and mud beneath to brag
I risk the sink and keep conviction true
To points and parsings I take out to drag.
Laces found in leafless branches gag
The freedom of the air, in grayish hue—
A cloud descends upon the roving crag.
But as the sky revives and laurels wag
And reap the ground, I’ll grit and shiver through
The points and parsings I take out to drag—
When cloud descends upon the roving crag.
Ah, a villanelle, one of my favorite forms. Line 14 comes up a syllable short (though a meter isn't required for this form). As to what happens in it, I'm completely lost. I couldn't decipher one bit of it. It seems like the speaker is outside observing nature, but a couple of the lines make it sound like he's inside, but a white-walled room with a sink and a mud floor? I don't know what that would be. Given the prompt, I guess it literally means the person is in a foggy place that eventually clears out? I don't get a message from it, though.
The weakness here is perhaps in the phrase "points and parsings". I think one apprehends, by the end of the narrative, that this could mean "my thoughts"; but the lack of clarity is a big price to pay for clever alliteration, and certainly such a contrivance is not strong enough on its own to hold up a villanelle, which depends on the reconciliation of its two main lines.