The following poem is written in Terza Rima, a style pioneered and popularized by Dante Alighieri, the popular Italian renaissance poet. The style is characterized by interlinking of stanzas, symbolising one continuous tale that starts and ends at the same time. It can be considered a euphemism for a circle having no beginning or an ending, just the path along which it is set. A special rhyme scheme is followed throughout the piece: aba, bcb, cdc and so on.
The crescent lamp wanders off
The red christens the sky
The weary man punctuates his yawn with a cough.
The solace of sleep wears dry
He brushes, bathes and breaks his fast
A smile curves his mouth, his spirits high.
He dresses his best, his coat on last
Looks forward to the present, a gift this date
Vainly unaware of the curses cast.
In youthful spring, his pupils dilate
And the sunlight trickles down his cheek
He leaps forward with an elvish gait.
He spots her across the paved creek
And like two swans in the lake under dusk-lit blue
They dance towards each other, only eyes speak.
A breath of a feather away she is due
The infinity between them in reach
Awaiting embrace of the arms he threw.
But alas, mistress life cackled a screech
And a yellow-eyed demon whisks her away
It rips his heart and hangs it on a beech.
The yarns of fate weave today
A tapestry of pain in dark red crimson
The man is broken and he knows no way.
No way not to sway and faint
And break into shards of delirious haze
The nightmare of today is a dream so quaint.
This second of tragedy fuels the pain of days
His pearls birth rivers down his chin
The shining soul has now lost its glaze.
– Praneel Dev, Amity International School, Noida
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