Quest

Son, you need a quest
To push and challenge you
So fly, fly out west

Life is one big test
With problems to work through
Son, you need a quest

-ion  — and next
You search for answers, too
So fly, fly out west

Put young wings to test
Feel what rising currents do —
Son, you need a quest

Life has little rest
Look for what is true
So fly, fly out west

May you be richly blessed
In all that you pursue
So fly, fly out west
Son, you need a quest

*****

Last year my youngest son attended a program called Quest, a gap year between high school and whatever comes next.

It was a year of fun and challenges — rock climbing, caving, sailing a tall ship.

It was a year of discipleship, of knowing and being known.

I’m so thankful he could do it.

I had been toying with the idea of writing a villanelle for each photo challenge.

I had read that “the villanelle circles, like carrion fowl,” and I thought it was an apt description, the circling round and round with two lines.  The villanelle has a very specific rhyme scheme: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1(or2) A2(or1). The first and third lines of the first stanza are the circling buzzards.

But the writer went on and said, “And like the buzzard, no one really likes the villanelle.”

I got a little indignant. I like the villanelle. I think it’s cool. I like the puzzle of it, the structure.

That settles it, I thought. I’m going to write a villanelle for each photo challenge.

So this week’s Photo Challenge was Quest, and here is my villanelle of the same name.