For John Keats

perhaps he dreamed up his poems

that they should be past his Maytime flourishing

the brides of silence

unheard melodies he mused are sweeter

who could say that now

when everyone wants to be heard

but then he was a dreamer even for the times he lived in

and denizen of no socially trumpeting streets

inhabiting realms of gold

then coughing up blood

in the last retreats, so young! years condensed

beyond mead

who could match his effulgence

the brede work of exquisite workmanship

his melancholy exorbitance, bruised chivalries.

why wouldn't the nightingale want to live

among his branches forever

to sing effortlessly there

perhaps that's why we no longer speak of her so much, as such,

nor care, not in the old ways dim beyond repair

because she has gone, banished to better kingdoms

with him, oh John Keats.

I would sing of pomegranates, of unflinching stars

and destinies, of all you are and were

but you had left the harbor long since

and before I was a girl;

your Muse is past weeping now...

the sweet bird sings no fables here

not pouring out for our pragmatic ears

unceasingly, lavishly that music fountaining beauty

that he caught, rapturously,

world without end

mary angela douglas 31 october 2021