Forging a new form. I find this one works well to combine a visual scene with an abstract thought that it inspires. The form comprises five stanzas:
- A sestet detailing a scene (two lines of trimeter and one tetrameter, repeating as aac bbc)
- A couplet summarizing the scene (trimeter, i.e. keep it short)
- A sestet re-inforcing the preceding stanzas and/or gradually introducing the abstraction (same meter as first sestet)
- A couplet followed by
- A tercet – i.e. five lines that clarify the abstraction.
I’m going to try and repeat this form in a future post to see if it holds up :-). Share your thoughts in a comment here, or email me.
Powdered sugar driveways;
Slipping on the highways;
Crystal wonder flakes in motion;
Fallen in an hour
In a gentle shower,
Look around you: it’s an ocean.
Snow, snow, snow, everywhere,
Float and blow through the air,
Let the whiners blather
On that they would rather
Brave the summertime commotion.
Feel the mercy falling,
I can hear you calling
Through the layers of this notion.
Snow and love fall the same
From above in the name
Of the ever living,
And forever giving
Center of a heart’s devotion.
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