Ya-Du

In the 16th century, the Burmese conquered Siam, and their subsequent knowledge of Thai romantic poems gave rise to a new verse form called the Ya-Du (the seasons). They borrowed only the theme, however, and not the form, and they developed it as an emotional poem, passionate, yet with something of the cool intellectual strength of the poems of the English metaphysical.

The Ya-Du form will always have some reference to nature. (Mother nature, not human nature). Most Ya-Du will have only one verse and never have more than three verses. Each verse will have five lines.

The first four lines have four syllables in each line. The last or fifth line, which will rhyme with the fourth line, will have five, seven, nine or eleven syllables.

Lines one, two and three have rhyming syllables at four, three and two respectively. Lines three four and five also follow the pattern of the first three but also add an end rhyme to lines four and five.

Line 1: x x x A

Line 2: x x A x

Line 3: x A x B

Line 4: x x B C

Line 5: x B x x x x x x x x C or: x B x x x x x x C or: x B x x x x C or: x B x x C.

Seriously, who comes up with these things? :-)


The best I could do was a two stanza Ya-du.


The winter comes
Air becomes chill
Cold numbs, snow falls
I recall past
Snow squalls, snowing us in fast.

And then the spring
Sun glinting bright
Melting the snow
World aglow with
The slow arrival to life forthwith.