Ode to a Transformation

Keats Becoming Yeats

If you were dark, I'd praise your darknesses;
if you were easy, I would praise your ease,
but you are palely loitering—lilies, yes,
upon your brow—and breast—this sans merci's

for you—I can provide no easy answers—
can't foretell the future—how am I
to tell you Yes—or how to No the dancers
from the dance, or separate the lie

from what it lies in, or disguise from what
it dies in? Here, where no birds sing, and sedge
has withered by the lake and where the gut
unsettles once we pass the paling's edge –

I dream of your Ledean body, dear,
as I put on my feathered glory here.

by Lee Warner Brooks

in volume 4 issue 1

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