SONNET TO KAHLYNE

You cased not for sickly everlasting
Banks of that noxious industrial creek.
But my blighted bracts, my corymb casting
Seed in abhorrent air, my axis, weak
And sere, you noted. You unsheathed a spade,
Combed my caked roots and laded a bell jar.
A glass vivarium in a cascade -
Sheer mist, sheer light - became my reservoir,
My humic sacrarium. Those vert months
Your care cleansed me like a windswept downpour,
Till my frail corolla bloomed ten millionths
Of an inch from the ley of joy. Therefore,
Seed the stygian banks with pale asphodel
And let pressed poesies be your immortelle.