Sewing the Stars in the Night: An Ovillejo for The Sunday Whirl – Wordle

The night stars look like lit needle points across the sky…

Each week The Sunday Whirl invites writers to write a poem or short prose using some or all of the “Wordle’s” 12 words. This week it is:

Wordle’s words

Sewing the Stars in the Night: An Ovillejo*

Do needles light the sky at night?
‘Tis such a sight.

They hem the bridge that trails the view,
Mist morning’s dew.

Dressed soil deflects the breezy chill,
The stars still.

Basting day light into dark fill;
A trip of trust, only a stitch
To trim the night, forever rich:
‘Tis such a sight. Mist morning’s dew, the stars still.

Randy Mazie

*An Ovillejo

I chose to write an ovillejo after reading Robert Lee Brewer’s column, Poetic Asides, in the November/December 2016 edition of Writer’s Digest. Mr. Brewer notes that an ovillejo is a Spanish poetic form made popular by Cervantes.

It is comprised of three rhyming couplets and a quatrain. The first line of each couplet has eight syllables. The first line of the first couplet presents a question while the second line is either an answer or an echo. The second line generally has three or four syllables. The quatrain has in a ABBA rhyme scheme. The first three lines are eight syllables long, while the final line combines the second lines of each of the three couplets (lines two, four and six).

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