C'est fini!

And now for our final (yet still optional!) prompt. Today, as befits the final poem of NaPoWriMo, I challenge you to write a poem of farewell. It doesn’t have to be goodbye forever — like I said, NaPoWriMo will be back again next year. If you need a little inspiration, you might find some in perusing this selection of goodbye-and-good-luck poems from the Poetry Foundation website.

Happy writing, everyone, and good-bye, and see you next year!

The terzanelle is a modified villanelle. It uses the terza rima's interlocked rhyme pattern, but fits the villanelle form of five triplets and a quatrain. In addition, the middle line of the 1st stanza becomes the third line of the next stanza, and so on, such that the terzanelle is a huge pain, but worth the effort and determination to finish.

A Farewell to April

It is difficult word to say

When one must summon an honest farewell

Farewell to April, welcome sweet May

It does not pay to consistently dwell

On the sodden grass and cool damp air

When one must summon an honest farewell

April rolls out quietly, brown and bare

Signs of life emerge, so tentative

On the sodden grass and cool damp air

The birds return and the flowers live

As the month comes to a final close

Signs of life emerge, so tentative

There's poetry in spring, sweeter than prose

Ceasing with the last of winter's remains

As the month comes to a final close

Farewell dank earth, farewell melting rains

It is a difficult word to say

Ceasing with the last of winter's remains

Farewell to April, welcome sweet May

-Laura Freeman-

April 30, 2014