Wax (Pi Day poem, Pi poetry, piaphrase)

Note: This is a constrained writing poem based on making the number of letters in each word correspond to the digits of pi (I went to the 150th decimal place). This is sometimes referred to as piaphrase, contrasted with piaku which has lines with syllables that match the digits of pi. This can more generally be referred to as a pi mnemonic. See below for further explanation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510
5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679
8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128
...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wax. I love a lunar luminance of waxing phase and shape, moonface appearing gibbous, hunchback, and as the swelling edge swings to expand left and the fraction lit is rightly maximized, await... It enlarges entirely full. A sinistral brother, a waning, balancing, and mirroring continues for gibbous again. O...lunar shifting is...unceasing. Quarter moon appearing half, next shape minimized to arc...becomes crescent, a sliver left... Seeing by moonward glance or...assuming continued darkening, luminary absent or shadowed... New moon backward to earth. The wait is 1, 2 sunsets...unseen sunrise escorting moonrise to a full lunation... Returned waxing after a new, to crescent, an arc... Sunray lights moon quarter...increases the luminous part. More waxing...returning round again...phase favorite to my eye: a gibbous or bulgy and solar illumined moon... Universe, I am grateful.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Original: The piaphrase constraint may be encoded in different ways. I chose to use no words longer than 9 letters and to leave a blank line whenever there was a zero. My original Wax was a poster with the poem in four columns surrounded by pictures of the phases of the moon. That version had the additional constraints of having a three-letter title and no punctuation except the period (the decimal point) which separates the title from the body of the poem.

Paragraph: Because it is easier to read, I added a paragraph version. It has more punctuation and an ellipsis for each zero.

Mike Keith's Near a Raven--which is now only the first part of Cadaeic Cadenza which actually encodes the first 3,835 (!) digits of pi--has a different encoding rule:

"Near a Raven" encodes the first 740 decimals of pi. To be explicit, the encoding rule is this: a word of N letters represents
    - the digit N if N<10
    - the digit 0 if N=10, and
    - two adjacent digits if N>10
      (e.g., a 12-letter word represents the digit '1' followed by '2').
http://users.aol.com/s6sj7gt/mikerav.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Copyright © 2007 Dee Clark