The silence in the woods

I have always hated handicrafts, anything that involves cutting and sewing, weaving, pasting or pinning. So my eyes glazed over before I even got to the end of the instructions for today’s NaPoWriMo prompt. However, much simpler, is to find inspiration in a line from someone else’s poem. I often pinch favourite lines and let the words work their magic. In this villanelle I’ve taken the last two lines from a favourite poem of mine, The Listeners by Walter de la Mare:

“And how the silence surged softly backward

When the plunging hoofs were gone.”

 

There was silence in the woods beneath the trees

Where the ferny grasses bent beneath my tread;

No birds sang in my presence, ill at ease.

 

I listened for the voices in the breeze,

To tell me I had misheard what you said—

There was silence in the woods beneath the trees.

 

I saw no movement, feathered flight that flees,

In the blue arched high above my head;

No birds sang in my presence, ill at ease.

 

I stopped, breath held, drank silence to the lees,

Hoping in these dreams about me spread;

There was silence in the woods beneath the trees.

 

Beyond the quiet, sounds of life, a tease,

Even stream-murmur filled me with dread,

No birds sang in my presence, ill at ease.

 

You will not come, I know I was misled,

You kept my dreams, my heart’s blood all is bled,

Only silence laughs here, dark the trees,

No song will this deep sorrow ever ease.