Hello friends….

We briefly interrupt this month's haiku-a-thon to share my Raccontino, which is the form the Poetry Princesses decide to tackle this go-round.
I am starting to think the Poetry Princesses are more like Poetry Ninjas or something because these forms? Are fierce!

The Raccontino is a set of rhymed couplets where the second line of each couplet rhymes and the end of the first line of each couplet can be read vertically to make a statement or story! I know!! The guide I used also suggested using the same number of syllables in each line, so I did that although I don't think that's always part of the game.

Anyway, this process felt very chicken-and-egg to me. Do I make up the vertical story first? Or pick the rhyming words? Or just start writing and hope to high heaven? Who knows exactly how it all puzzled it out, but here's what I came up with. (The vertical poem is bolded):

I ask my skin and breath and heartbeat: How?
If even each spring blossom slips away

Then what to hold and trust, to know and do
that will not rot like wood, collapse, decay

Does the answer on the wind say you
or is that wild wishing, child’s play

I think of everything I’ve come to know
I gasp for breath, tip toes above the fray

The mourning dove and owl echo Who
I reach, I try to meet their songs halfway

And when I do, it’s you I’m singing to
Without answer, promise, sweet cliché

We use up minutes ‘til we both lose count
and look, it’s only time that we betray!

The things that last like birdsong, on and on?
Those things are us, at least another day.

I think you'll love some of Poetry Sisters' pieces:

Sara Lewis Holmes
Tricia Stohr-Hunt
Andi Sibley
Kelly Fineman
Tanita Davis
Laura Purdie Salas

More Poetry Friday poems are here!

And I'll be back later today with my daily haiku.
🙂