One Rondeau Poem by Jane Blanchard

 

Tristan and Iseult

 

            after the manuscript miniature by

Évrard d'Espinques, 15th century

 

She waves him off, at least for now,

While standing near the vessel’s bow.

She wears a crown, and he a hat.

Her countenance is rather flat;

He has a more contracted brow.



The vessel, almost like a plough,

Moves forward as the seas allow

Despite the current on-board spat:

           She waves him off.



Without a potion to endow

The marriage she must soon avow,

She is not in the mood to chat.

But he, the ready diplomat,

Suggests things will work out somehow.

            She waves him off.

 

 

 

 

 

Jane Blanchard of Augusta, Georgia, has recent work in The Lyric, The Main Street Rag, The Robert Frost Review, and The Seventh Quarry.  Her collections include Never Enough Already (2021), Sooner or Later (2022), and Metes and Bounds (2023).