From time to time, Poetic Asides offers a form challenge. I am not anti-form. Most of the time, writing within the confines of form forces you tighten your writing and focus and then you end up with a thought or visual you never expected. That’s the fun part of form writing. The not so fun part is trying to fit the words within a tight space.
Our challenge this time was to write a Tritina. “The tritina is composed of 3 tercets and a final line that stands alone. Like the sestina, it uses a set of alternating end words–in this case three.” The pattern is ABC, CAB, BCA. The final line uses all three repeating words in any order. Here’s mine:
“Hanging onto Love”
She still hangs on to love
like water, a deep-sea green ache,
within a boundless deep need for a life
to share, freedom within an eroding life
where her grief has collided with love
now released as desert tears and ache
inside her porous heart—a dry ache
to which she gave her life,
blind and mute to pure love—
an ache for life held inside love.
Writing On The Sun 