The Totemic Cardinals is a reflective poetic form concerning the hunt, originating in The Grand Confederations. The rules of the form are applied by poets to produce individual poems which can be recited. The poem is a single couplet. The Totemic Cardinals is always written from the perspective of the author. A form of parallelism is common throughout the poem, in that certain lines reverse grammatical structures. The ending of each line of the poem shares the same rhyme, though the rhyming doesn't have to be perfect. The second line of the couplet shares the underlying meaning of the first line. The first line is intended to express grief over the subject of the poem. It has ten syllables. It has a terminal caesura. The second line is intended to refuse consolation. It has nine syllables.