Spirits of the Night, sijo

I’ve written my first sijo… and I admit it was a bit intimidating. There is a rhythm that I’m not sure I found.

The idea is to write this sijo in three lines with a 3-4-4-4 grouping pattern in the first line; the second line echoes the 3-4-4-4 grouping with more details, and the third line is 3-5-4-4. I struggled with the line pattern, so I broke this down into syllables of 16-14-15, for around (45) 44-46 syllables.

I’ll have to work with this form some more to perfect it. Notice the punctuation and capitalization—this Korean form differs greatly from the Japanese forms.

This is for #TankaTuesday and for the Wombwell Rainbow’s form which is the sijo.

On dark moonless nights, star-shine unveils purple daytime forest shade.
Shadow trees, leaf-whisper in song. In dreams, I dance alone.
Deep sky reflects my soul-spirit, loneliness, my chaperone.

© Colleen M. Chesebro