Short Poetic Forms - The Cherita

Dear LivePoets,

I do love haiku - when well done it can take an image or a thought and flash it on the inner eye in one brief, bright second, like incandescent lightening, sudden illuminating the inky night sky both with visual image and significance. The haiku is not the lightening, but rather what you see during that split second of light.

Of course haiku is only one short poetic form. Recently Fran reintroduced me to the Cherita. Like the pantoum, Cherita is a Malaysian poetic form. Cherita is the Malay word for story or tale. A Cherita consists of a stanza with a single line, followed by a two-line stanza, and then finishing with a three-line stanza. It can either be written solo or with up to three partners.

I’ve written several, but have never really gotten hold of the feeling of the form, which, ideally delivers punch of meaning, especially in the last stanza. Fran has written some sterling Cherita. Fran, can I talk you into sharing some of your Cherita? (Particularly the one about the rabbit and the one about the butterfly.) They are perfect examples of the form.


Cherita for Childhood

I liked to play by myself

I knew which trees talked,
and which just drank the wind.

The bark scratched my bare legs
as I nestled in their arms
Dryad in crinolines

©Edwina Peterson Cross