Cherub Fountain
( A Rondeau Redouble)
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Yon cherubs dance delightfully in sky.
These little water nymphs pleasantly play,
On marble pool perched with grace and placed high,
Attracting attention of passersby.
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Below, demons that spew water away,
Depict that opposing forces apply,
As heaven’s offset with hellish display.
Yon cherubs dance delightfully in sky!
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Under where whiskered beasts wistfully try
To fill up fine pool with fish fluid spray,
With Earth’s seas beneath, above keeping dry
These little water nymphs pleasantly play.
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The water flows forth, recycling all day,
Inside park where it makes people sigh,
They cavort in naked glee, as they may,
On marble pool perched with grace and placed high.
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The sunlight glistens off each silver ray
That arcs to pool as sparkling droplets fly.
A fountain display that’s a touch risque,
Attracting attention of passersby.
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Many levels of purpose underlie
Three cosmic sites shown in artistic array.
As Heaven, Hell, and Earth, they signify,
I’d venture to see it without delay.
Yon cherubs dance!
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| Author Notes I went over to Lake Harriet in Minneapolis the other day. It has a fabulous Rose Garden there. In it is this magnificent water fountain. At the top are seven naked cherubs cavorting in a large marble bowl that spills down into a pool. Below them are demons with horns and goatees spewing water into clam shells, as underneath sea monsters with mustached whiskers blow water from their mouths into the pool below. So this artistic fountain represents heaven, hell, and the sea covered earth. I was moved by the site to write this poem.
It is a poem with a very complex fixed format. It is written on two rhymes (the a and b rhymes), but in five stanzas of four lines each and one of five lines that repeats a portion of the first line of the poem. Each of the first four lines (which due to the a and b rhymes will be identified in the following stanzas as A1, B1, A2 and B2) get individually repeated in turn once in the following stanzas by becoming successively the respective fourth lines of stanzas 2, 3, 4, & 5; and the first part of the first line is repeated as a short fifth line to conclude the sixth stanza. The stanzas each carry an abab rhyme scheme. So with the repeat line shown in numbered capitals, this can be represented as – A1,B1,A2,B2 – b,a,b,A1 – a,b,a,B1 – b,a,b,A2 – a,b,a,B2 – b,a,b,a,(A1). This poem can have any meter. For this poem I chose iambic pentameter, which has lines that have 10 syllables and a tempo of: da-Dum da-Dum da-Dum da-Dum da-Dum.
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