The quiet shuffle of cards

I was restless and it was late ...
far too late to be making noise,
so my options were limited

when I grabbed the deck
of cards that sits on
the bookshelf for
someday or sometime

it was a surprising move

because really,
they don't get much use,
but I thought ...

Solitaire,
I could play,
Solitaire

the cards, still like new,
were stiff and slippery,
hard to shuffle,
and I couldn't
remember all the rules

so I faked it and won
and thought,
that was easy

too easy

so I searched for
instructions and found
it wasn't so easy
after all

game after game
I lost until
I was no longer
restless, but tired,
and went to bed

and played again
the next day, and the
next

and lost

again and again
and again
until yesterday
after days and
weeks of following the
rules ...

I aced it on a quiet
evening with a full house

-----------

While I didn't have a lot to say about playing Solitaire, I wanted to write a short piece about how calming it was to shuffle the cards and how sticking with it (finally) gave me the reward of winning.

The narrative poetry structure works on three levels: it's a good format for shorter writing, the line breaks make it visually more interesting, and choosing where to add a line break gives you, the writer, more control of pacing and emphasis.

Try it with a story of your own about playing cards or patience or winning. And share it with me, I'd love to read what you write.