Two Sonnets

Did ever a day smell as fragrantly

in John Keats' Hampstead?  An ode to honeyed

summer     John Keats might write    blatantly

rhymed with clanging Cockney chimes    unworried

by consumptive coughing

and if Keats were living in modern times

writing verse    quickly spotting sheets with ink

his frame less frail    his complexion ruddy

his first love for Fanny    like his first drink

long forgotten

perhaps his life would be like this

alders ripple with tree's quiet laughter

someone's footprints have tracked the dew

Fanny long ago?     or his own daughter?

                  *

Alders gleam most for a moment at sunset

growing together in woodland clearings

while here under a locust tree    tiny leaves

begin to shine as if lit by a paint brush

heed well the blind    who know only darkness

who never saw light through a prism

when squalls scattered sunshine among some branches

then left all golden    crowned by a rainbow

if time is measured by light's decay

then time may stand still for the sight less

or time runs on

                                     transmuted as sound

touch

 a fountain splashing or waves lapping

but time flows on for all unceasing

a wake widening astern    keel of bright words

© Dick Russell, 2013