[Yves S L]

Hello John,

So my mind keeps trying to analyze what the pattern is. One variation that has just come to me is:

Follow the thrush’s feather (6 syllables long)
forest son (3 syllables short)
into the red twilight (6 syllables long)
deep in the heart (4 syllables short)
of the forest (4 syllables short)
where a city of black roofs (7 syllables long)
spins in a small circle (6 syllables long)
in a clearing (4 syllables short)

between the circling trees (6 syllables long)
where the sky erupts (5 syllables long)
with pulses (3 syllables short)
of more exquisite birds (6 syllables long)
than the thrush that stares (5 syllables long)
from the top (3 syllables short)
of his single tree. (5 syllables long)

So, for me, the most fundamental building block to the Riley Stanza is the long, long short:

where a city of black roofs
spins in a small circle
in a clearing

between the circling trees
where the sky erupts
with pulses

of more exquisite birds
than the thrush that stares
from the top


What makes the ending so effective is how you disrupted the final long, long, short with a final long line.

The next fundamental building block is opening alternating long, short, long, short:

Follow the thrush’s feather
forest son
into the red twilight
deep in the heart

Using these two basic rhythmic blocks, and allowing long or short to make a larger 5 block rhythmic unit, one could create all kinds of interesting waving cadences over a longer narrative arc. Which is why I am curious to see this stanza design over a longer stretch of story.

Free verse can be as constrained as rhyme and meter.