Rondeau Redouble: Cold Refrain Poem by Richard St. Clair

As daylight brought a song into my heart
A bittersweet anointment cloaked the trees;
With cunning craft, it blanched the branches’ art
With chaste and chilling crystal reveries.

The sun broke through and with a coaxing ‘please’
Conspired with earthbound gravity to chart
A course to crush and melt the freeze
As daylight brought a song into my heart.

Alarums, fire sirens, tore apart
The mesmerizing winterscape with ease,
Derailed the image with a sonic dart.
A bittersweet anointment cloaked the trees

Which mechanism crassly sought to seize
And shake as if its plan were but to thwart
The work of nature, by whose quake and quease,
With cunning craft, it blanched the branches’ art.

The drama having played, I gave a start
To think of summertime, the grass and bees,
When winds will warmly coddle us to part
With chaste and chilling crystal reveries.

But that is months away: For now, a quart
Of water is a block of ice; a breeze,
A messenger of grief sent to impart
And plunge its judgment, without cost or fees,
Into my heart.