Rite of Passage

Karl Constantine FOLKES 1935 (Portland)



At the wake
A lover weeps.
Tears on her cheeks.
No time to fake.

People in mourning…
He died while a-courting.
Much anger provoking.
Here, no one him scorning.

The church bells are tolling.
The service is now over.
The casket with cover,
At gravesite a-rolling.

‘Twas a time we were born,
Finding in life romance,
Giving someone a chance.
Alas— a time now to mourn.

About this poem

THE RITUAL OF MOURNING: The book of Ecclesiastes informs us that there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. The lyric poet, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC - 8 BC), more famously known as Horace, is credited with coining the expression, “carpe diem “ (“seize the day”), recorded in Odes Book 1. The idiom, “”Eat, drink and be merry,” is associated with the Greek philosopher, Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC). What all these cited instances have in common, is a commentary on the vagaries of life, which is ever so fleeting. This poem, “Rite of Passage,” is written as a quatrain, with a ABBA rhyme scheme. 

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Written on November 22, 2021

Submitted by karlcfolkes on November 22, 2021

Modified by karlcfolkes on September 19, 2022

24 sec read
160

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXXA BBBA BCCB DEED
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 374
Words 82
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4

Karl Constantine FOLKES

Retired educator of Jamaican ancestry with a lifelong interest in composing poetry dealing particularly with the metaphysics of self-reflection; completed a dissertation in Children’s Literature in 1991 at New York University entitled: An Analysis of Wilhelm Grimm’s ‘Liebe Mili’ (translated into English as “Dear Mili”), Employing Von Franzian Methodological Processes of Analytical Psychology. The subject of the dissertation concerned the process of Individuation. more…

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