This is a recent picture of my wife, Karen. Next week will be our 39th anniversary. Next year will make 40 years together. Amazing. I wrote this poem as a tribute to her.

This poem is a quatern.
The Quatern is a French form of poetry that is composed of four quatrains, (four-line stanzas). It is similar to the Kyrielle and other French poems, in that it has a repeated refrain. But, unlike other French forms, it doesn't have to rhyme--there is no rhyme scheme specified. Similar to other French forms of poetry, the Quatern consists of lines with eight syllables each, and has no required meter. The Refrain starts as the first line of the first Stanza, then the second line of the second, the third of the third, and the last line of the fourth stanza. So it moves through the poem in a cascade.

However, for this poem, I chose to rhyme it. I used a basic abab rhyme scheme, but added a twist. I used only three rhymes in this poem. The third and fourth stanzas are the inverse of the first two. The a rhyme remains constant through the poem.
So, the rhyme scheme becomes: Abab cAca acAc babA, where the capital letter shows the line that repeats.

This photograph was taken by the author in our living room om November 13, 2014.

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