In 2021 I wrote a sestina about the refreshing that Jesus has to offer those who trust in Him.  This week I re-wrote the poem in the form of a French roundelay, where the rhyming patterns of each stanza interlock and the last rhyming couplets have a repetitive echo.

This poem is based on two Hebrew words that begin with the n-sounding letter, nun (נ); the first, a verb, is nafash, which means to refresh.  (Its noun form, nefesh, is the Hebrew word for soul.)  The second term, nishb’rei-lev means ‘broken-hearted’, a word that conveys the sense of someone being a victim of another person’s destructive malice.  I shall let the poem speak for itself.  May it bless you.

God bless, Nahum.