Entreaty

A villanelle

Father Time, hold fast the sands in your hourglass;
do not let them fall so quickly to the fore.
We need to savor them, be aware as they pass.

We entreat you for all of us en mass
that we not waste what's gone before:
Father Time, hold fast the sands in your hourglass.

Let the sands fall slower, let us not live in the past.
But to go on learning more
We need to savor them, be aware as they pass.

To learn is all we can hope to amass
that which is intrinsic to our core.
Father Time, hold fast the sands in your hourglass.

Spill not sands loose as shattered glass,
help us to not cower, but to soar.
We need to savor them, be aware as they pass.

We must not repeat the fails, alas,
If we but learn from mistakes of yore,
Father Time, hold fast the sands in your hourglass;
We need to savor them, be aware as they pass.


















A villanelle is a structured 19-line poem consisting of five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by a quatrain (four-line stanza). It has a strict rhyme scheme of ABA, with two repeating refrains (lines 1 and 3 of the first stanza) alternating as the final lines of subsequent tercets, forming a concluding couplet.