Keats’ House before Arthur
A meager air like dimmed eternity
Pervades the scene. The purple of the spikes
Of crocuses is like an undersea
Phenomenon in coral depths the likes
Of which John Keats could not have seen
Or conjured in his poetry. But still
This English light, spring colored, would have been
Available, those wan pastels to fill
His eyes and lungs with its recurrent doom.
This garden bench sits dank here on this lawn.
Somehow a prophesy-like pale mauve bloom
Will have predicted his dusk, not a dawn.
..Does it matter that the pink tree will bud?
One wintry night he coughed up his heart’s blood.