Once, in the moment, struck still and silent,
Shadows creep along the hills toward dusk.
Crows blacken the sky; the leader pilots
The followers toward the clouds, fine as dust.
The moon sports a halo of mist, piled up
To sweep across the star-splayed night, which must
Uphold our dream of a world less strident,
A world where truth is beauty, beauty truth.
Prescient as he was, Keats saw violence
As nature’s faulty mechanism: rust.
If not in poems, then in his own demise.
There’s no glory in death, ****** upon us.
But in the moment, scared, still and silent,
A darkened beauty slithers toward dusk.