Reading My Mother’s Journals, a villanelle

NaPoWriMo April 23: “Try your hand today at your own take on a villanelle, and have the poem end on a question.”

Villanelle: “A French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas. These two refrain lines form the final couplet in the quatrain.” The Poetry Foundation

Reading My Mother’s Journals, a villanelle
by Elizabeth Boquet

For five years, I carried packed stacks
of my mother’s journals down from the attic—
the heaven of the house—where she remained

safe in duct-taped cardboard boxes, placed them
in my study, and waited, only to take them back up
unopened. For five years, I carried the packed stacks

on my back, down those old folding wooden stairs,
and stared at cardboard squares holding her words
from heaven. In the house, where she remained

for five years, I’d carry her packed stacks because
she asked me to—in writing—in her will. The duty,
thrill, and beauty of it might have killed me if

the heaven of the house, where she’d remained,
hadn’t saved space and time to brave and crave
her words again—to believe her words forgave.

If I’d known how close we’d grow, finally—for not
even death can silence written words—would I have,
five years ago, dared free those packed stacks I carried
from the heaven in the house where they remained?

Photo of my mother, Eve Hamblett Cassatt, hosting a tea party for my niece Paige (on the left, sipping), and my daughter Olivia, who is holding a stuffed guest.