The horizons only ever show faded light.
Summer leaves have started to fall.
The warmer days are turning cold.
Shadows lie on my tongue: premonitions of winter.
Cool breezes seep into my care-free mind
like an ice-water spring.
How can I think of the spring,
or the sun’s glowing light?
This chill has worked its way into my mind.
All I can imagine is the coming fall
and then the following blanket of winter.
I can feel my capillaries going cold.
Does haughty autumn have to be so cold?
The year is sometimes like a spring:
bouncing from summer to fall to winter.
And summer crawls up your shoulder like dawn's light.
But that cheery sun always falls;
it gets dark, but I don't mind.
Leaves have been collecting in my mind.
I fight to find my way out of this cold.
If I stay focused, maybe I won't fall
like all the leaves in autumn, or the petals in spring.
Maybe I can hold on until the light
that will make life from the melted soul of winter.
When vines crawl over my house after winter,
It is the end of a dying life in my mind.
With this death comes hearts that are light
and like a cloak, the year sheds its cold
to beckon the coming spring
When the rain leaves diamonds where it falls.
The spring day is like Eden before The Fall
where they have never known a harsh winter.
The steps of man have a new type of spring,
and a fog of winter's clouds lifts from their minds.
There are no more thoughts of cold,
only an eternal shining light.
But Suns on the horizon only ever fall to show faded light within our minds.
The leaves have started to warn of winter, to fall again in the cold.
Farewell again to the warmer days of spring, the world is again turning towards a chilly light.
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A/N: this is a sestina. There is a reason it repeats so much, that's just the Structure.
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Canary word: Present
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141,284 Literary Works • 674,333 Reviews
Oooh. This is interesting. It's great that you're experimenting with new types of structure. And I'm glad you've provided the link to explain what it means, otherwise I would have had no idea as to how the structure was relevant.
As for the content, I am going to analyse one particular stanzas (my favourite one) because it encapsulates the best of the techniques you have used:
First line: good use of personification
Second line: links with pathetic fallacy
Third line: juxtaposition - of sorts
Fourth line: enjambment works well here with your extended imagery
Fifth line: the natural 'seasons' idea here is interesting
Sixth line: the imagery in the 'rain' 'diamonds' is difficult to explain why I like it.
Interesting work.
Keep writing
~BSF
Hi there, Fortis. GreenLight24 here with a review of this Sestina for you!
Happy Thursday Night. Before I get into the meat of this review, let me just say that I have absolutely no clue what a sestina is and what makes it any different from any other poem other than the structure obviously, so I will just be reviewing it like I would any other poetry piece. First, I'll talk about some of the things that I thought you did well with this one, and the I'll try my best to offer you some creative criticisms later on in the review. 
Now the, let us begin!
Okay so the first thing I'd like to commend you for is your mastery of the imagery in this poem and your optimal utilization of all of those images. Literally every single image you employed worked towards the overarching idea of dawn and dusk and the different seasons symbolizing the juxtaposition of intellectual receptiveness/growth and intellectual withdrawal/reservation. I thought that you chose to grapple with a very profound and interesting idea here and your images were your most effective tool for presenting it. Another thing that was cool about the images you used was that all of them were intertwined and somehow connected. By drawing all of your images together, you've managed to draw the entire poem towards that single idea of intellectual bipolarity. I loved how you chose to make it a first person narrative poem too because that gave it a really personal feel. I sort of got a sense that all of these images and the feelings described here are things that you've actually seen and/or experienced. Great job there.
The next thing I thought was really nice about this poem was the metaphors and similes you used. Personifying the seasons and likening them to things like "Eden before the fall" was extremely effective in conveying your central idea. I especially loved the last two stanzas. Not only did they beautifully summarize your central argument while also embracing the complexity there with "eternal shining light" and the "Suns on the horizon", but they were also, in my opinion, the most colorful and aesthetically pleasing lines of the poem (or Sestina lol) as well. That was a really cool way to wrap this one up and it leaves the reader with images that will stick with them and thoughts that will too.
*unicorn busts in the door* *knocks me away from laptop* *shouts* "OKAY! IT'S THAT TIME OF THE REVIEW AGAIN! CON.STRUCT.IVE CRITICISMS!!! OPERATION START!"
*unicorn clears throat*
Okay so, although my colleague has observed that this poem is an intellectual masterpiece and that the imagery and literary devices definitely help to illuminate it's central themes well, I personally think that they could possibly distract from those ideas too at some points. For instance, you really went with an imagery overload strategy here, and you worked that pretty hard. It does work well, but I sorta feel like some readers would just be too focused on the whimsical imagery and aesthetically pleasing descriptive language to really get those ideas. If imagery overload is one of the characteristics of a Sestina, just disregard this bit because like my colleague said, we aren't really well-versed on what makes a Sestina a Sestina. Aside from that, my only other suggestion would be that you go back and proofread. Your spelling and grammar were pretty flawless here, but it's always worth your while to do more than one check. My partner and I usually say that in any review, so yeah, this one's really no different.
I hope our review was helpful for you and you did an awesome job on this poem...uh, i mean...Sestina? Never Stop Writing, buddy!
Thanks for your review, if you want to know what a sestina is (and how incredibly difficult and annoying it is, click on the word "structure" in the author's note. But this was very helpful, thanks!
I'm glad you found this helpful. Now that I know what a Sestina is, I'm even more impressed with the job you've done here! Nice going!