The Lune was created by poet Robert Kelly as the American Haiku. Frustrated by the challenges of adapting the Haiku to the English language, he reduced the tercet to a 5/3/5 syllable arrangement instead of the 7/5/7 of the Haiku. He removed any other rules. There is no nature requirement and rhyming is acceptable.

Poet Jack Collom added a variation that is word-based instead of syllable-based having a five word first line, three word second line and five word final line. This poetic form is known as a Collom lune.