U.P. Winter

Dear George, 

Influenced by Japanese haiku and tanka, the cinquain is a five-line poem developed in American poetry by Adelaide Crapsey (1915).  The five lines of the cinquain have 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 syllables respectively.   Typically, the lines offer (1) a subject, (2) descriptive adjectives about the subject, (3) an action, (4) a feeling or effect, and (5) a conclusion.  There are several variations on the basic five-line cinquain.  One of these, the garland, is a sequence of six cinquains, the last of which is formed of lines from the preceding five (usually line one from stanza one, line two from stanza two, etc.).  Below is a garland cinquain prompted by our childhood experiences of winter on the Menominee River.

Love,

Dave

U.P. Winter

White North

Barren forests

We snowshoe toward the bend

Watching for deer and porcupine

Snow-Men

Up stream

Ice a foot thick 

Fishermen in shanties

Shivering at pot-bellied stoves

No bites

Deer cross

Fueled by hunger

Foraging for dead weeds

They struggle in the windblown drifts

Peril

Soft ice

A deer falls through

Dad pushes out the boat

But the deer sinks into the depths

Mourning

March wakes

The river melts

Flowing crystals tinkle

My mom names it “Chinese Bells Day” 

Pale skies

White North

Ice a foot thick 

Foraging for dead weeds

But the deer sinks into the depths

Pale skies