The hardest thing about vacation is the preparation. We are trying desperately to get away for our first family trip since last August. That middle of pandemic trip where a fluke fire consumed our truck, camper, and Evan’s bike in a single night.
We were awakened from a deep sleep to a neighbor banging frantically on the doors, walls, and windows of our camper. When we opened the door, the wall of orange flames threw us backward with their heat.
“Get out! Get out! The gas tank might blow!”
Those terrifying words shocked us in to action. We had to wake Ev and get the dogs, before running as far away as we could from the camper.
The whole experience left us shell shocked and bereft of vehicle and camper.
So you can imagine how the memory of that night one year ago drags on us as we pack to leave on our first camping trip since the fire.
I decided to use the triolet with its tight repetitive structure to speak the words we are all feeling.
Vacation
The list growing by the minute
works us hard so we don’t forget;
we try harder just to win it.
The list growing by the minute
has us seeking virtue in it
to make sure we do not regret.
The list growing by the minute
works us hard so we don’t forget.
—Carla Jeanne Jordan
A triolet is a poem of eight lines, typically of eight syllables each, rhyming abaaabab and so structured that the first line recurs as the fourth and seventh and the second as the eighth.
Sounds like some weird crazy poetry torture device, doesn’t it?
Well, I finished off my coffee and found this helpful cheat chart.
Triolet Lines:
1. A
2. B
3. a Rhymes with 1st line.
4. A identical to 1st line.
5. a Rhymes with 1st line.
6. b Rhymes with 2nd line.
7. A Identical to 1st line.
8. B Identical to 2nd line.
Poetry, Ponderings and Possibilities 