Saturday, March 31, 2012

Cinquain: Triad



These be
three silent things:
the falling snow...  the hour
before the dawn... the mouth of one
just dead.

--Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914)



what is a cinquain?




with a nod of thanks to Adelaide Crapsey

2 comments:

J.E. Stanley said...

Another one inspired by Adelaide Crapsey's "Triad:"

3

These are
deafening things:
winter thunder. . .the dawn
in times of war. . .the cry of one
just born.


First published in Lilliput Review, July 2009

Rob said...

I really like the cinquain. It is alive and poignant. While reading it, I couldn't help but hear another poetic form, the numeric proverb. (Sorry, it's my academic discipline!) Hebrew poetry has an n+1 form.

Three things are too wonderful for me,
four things I do not understand:
The way of a ship upon the sea,
the way of an eagle in the air,
the way of a serpent upon a rock,
and the way of a man and a woman.

Cross-cultural poetry always seems to bring new awareness of the world. That is to say, it makes my brain work differently.

Cited...

The poet doesn't invent. He listens. ~Jean Cocteau