Tutorial: The Triplet.
As the chain moves forward, the poetry involved becomes more complex. Usually, these poems would be attached to bouquets or small gifts; sometimes the gifts in question become more complex along with the poetry (although that's usually the sort of chain that ends with a marriage proposal). As you move onwards with your chain, try to avoid repeating rhymes that you've used before. If that's not possible, at least avoid the rhymes that you've used in the previous two poems.
(It's possible that you might, stylistically, decide to use a pre-selected batch of rhyme elements to assemble all the poems in your chain. If you do, more power to you, and I want to see.)
The second poem in our chain is the triplet. Like the couplet, this is an essentially simple poetic form: it is nothing more nor less than three lines, grouped together to make a single verse. You have no fixed rhyme scheme, and can opt for an AAA, ABA, or ABC pattern. Some people even replace this step with a simple haiku.
(Before you ask -- no, I don't. I don't feel that Eastern poetic forms necessarily belong in the middle of a Western chain, for the same reason that I would feel odd assembling a chain entirely from Eastern forms and ending with a sonnet. But you can do it if you want to.)
Because I'm trying to stay traditional, I've opted for a 'straight' triplet, following a fixed ABA rhyme scheme. This means that the first and third lines will rhyme, while the second line will be a 'blank', having no actual rhyming element. This seems a bit overly simple to me, since I'm trying to increase the complexity of my poetry as the chain goes on, so I've chosen to include an internal rhyme in lines one and three.
Our first line is:
In subtle turns of seasons we forget our faults,
This makes 'faults' the 'A' element in the rhyme scheme, while the phrase 'subtle turns of seasons' recalls the imagery used in the couplet. After some consideration, it seems that 'seasons' is the best word here to rhyme in the third line -- I'll make a note of that.
Now we need the blank line. To make the triplet look a little more free-form and natural -- remember, the hardest thing about structured poetry is making it look like it flows effortlessly from your pen -- I've decided that we should make this line a bit shorter than the first and third lines. Hence:
Trace our measures to the music,
Now we've added 'music' to my topic elements of 'flowers', 'death' and 'time'. That's a good mix -- we can go a lot of places with that set of topics, without becoming overly masculine in our word choices.
All that remains is the third line, which must contain rhymes for 'seasons' and 'faults'. Once the pattern of the rhymes is fixed to match the scansion of the first line, the result reads:
Let love forsake its treasons and become a waltz.
So our completed triplet is:
In subtle turns of seasons we forget our faults,
Trace our measures to the music,
Let love forsake its treasons and become a waltz.
This is still a very feminine form, very delicate; our rhymes are intentionally breezy and seem even a little loose. This encourages belief that the verse was set down by a woman's hand. As the chain goes on it will become more difficult to keep the verses light, because the elements of structure will force so many portions of the poem -- that makes it essential to get the female touches and rhyme patterns in early, while we still can.