Directions to Dante’s

Take a left at the willow tree

follow the road round four bends

keep right at every fork until

the scarecrow in the fallow field.

At this fork take your left.

Here the dirt road crosses a path,

a broad swath of white gravel stones

that should gleam by the moonlight

(if they don't, run away) – park.

Get out. Walk the moonstones

as long as it takes

to recite any poem by Keats, and stop 

upon the final word.

Wait there in the dappled clearing

in the copse of corpselike birch

and cursed yew and witch-elm.

Wait there while the wind whispers

To the underbrush and murk, a council

of night assembled to try you.

There await their somber verdict.

There await their strictest sentence.

Move not a muscle, nor utter a noise.

I'll meet you at half past.