Bella Luna (Lunes)

Trying a format featured at d'Verse Form For All called the Lune 
Sharing at d'Verse Poets Open Link Night #78, since I missed Form for All!










pale moon slowly ebbs

darkened sky

awaits a new dawn

hope shines elusive

a bright star

just beyond our reach

inspiration comes

unbidden

in wee morning hours

the dawn breaks

I watch through my window

as world awakens

© Ginny Brannan January 2012

The Lune is known as the American haiku.  Robert Kelly, American poet, studied haiku, and altered the form to fit English with a 5-3-5 syllable count, and omitting capitalization and end punctuation. There are no requirements on having a nature theme, the poem may rhyme or not, may use similes or metaphors or any other poetic device. 

There is also another form of the lune, in some ways simpler, and thus more widely taught in the primary and secondary schools. American poet and essayist Jack Collom created this alternative version. In Collom’s version, words are counted instead of syllables, and the structure is a count of 3-5-3 words. This version was apparently created by accident, when Collom was working with schoolchildren, and he misremembered Kelly’s structure. The new form stuck because words were easier for children to count than syllables – thus making it easier and more enjoyable for them to create poetry. The form has been taught this way for over 35 years.

*The first 3 are in Kelly's format, the last in Collom's.