Summer Sequence

SUMMER SEQUENCE
(C) R.L.K.

Slow old train crossing a rusty bridge;
the night assumes the shape of rain.

....
Pale moon peeking through parting clouds;
Willows bow at the end of the road.

....
One thin dime in the beggar’s cup;
how many summers have come and gone?

....
Dusty boots left out on the porch;
the evening wind rustles the curtains.

Non-Sonnet

NON-SONNET
(C) R.L.K.

It’s the kind of summer morning
that might make you think of an
Edward Hopper painting: bright sky,
empty street, shuttered shops, and,
of course, trees looming in the distance,
lending strangeness to the landscape. So,
what’s that feeling? Why, it could be
the lowdown lonely town wander around
nowhere bound blues coming on. That’s
tuneful enough, a way to say “how it
really is”: this day, this scene where
nobody waits to be in somebody's dream.
Just jot these notes, then: Seven a.m.
Sunlight and shadow on old stone stairs.

The House She Lived In

THE HOUSE SHE LIVED IN
(c) R.L.K.

You might come upon it suddenly, unexpectedly,
when you are out walking at twilight. Perhaps the wind
will be blowing cold, and the willows that line the old road
will be swaying, their shadows flung across new-fallen snow.

Maybe you will notice the light on the porch
softly glowing, the door rattling as if longing
to be opened, the windows reflecting clouds.
It will all seem strange, yet it will all seem familiar.

And you will walk on, thinking of past things,
of long slow days with sunlight and songs in the air.
You will walk on, while the moon rises
in the sky above this world built of dust.

Newku

NEWKU
(C) R.L.K.

1.
sun slowly sinking --
beside the old pond
willow branches shudder in the wind

2.
under a cloud-cumbered sky
silent streets,
trees embracing the dusk

3.
rain fizzles
out; one note
from the wind chimes

4.

just after midnight;
the streetlamps
hang like misted moons

Five Fragments

FIVE FRAGMENTS
(C) R.L.K.

whoever would wander

Wishing the blues away in the wan light
of a winter evening won't hasten spring,
yet we do as we have done, thus far,
in a world of loss where snowflakes
swirl around the streetlamps. Tramping on,
we wonder about the distance demanded,
ponder again the distance gone.

seasonally

A summer comes, goes, that's how it is.
Days follow days: slivers of blue sky quiver
in the branches, then the trees thin out,
and clouds pile on clouds. So the story goes,
and so we go, following, just so, into a fall.

if so, if only

This is how it is now: a cup of warm tea
after a late supper. Rattle of windows. Outside
the March wind flings a final few snowflakes
across the landscape. This is spring now, a new
season, though the songs on the radio are old songs
that speak of old things. Old ourselves, if we begin again
we begin not with new hope, but with hope to hope again.

what now is

It is April once more and so we listen
to the familiar music of the rain. We have come
this far, merely persisted, and wondered
all the while if it mattered to the world.
This far, thus far, in the world. So we say:
it is raining, and there is a haze of first leaf.
We call it spring: a mere word in a mere world?

travelers

The clock in this old cafe stopped
years ago, but that's okay -- things
stop, as we have stopped for coffee
on our way to parts unknown (always,
it seems, on our way to parts unknown).
And so we sit; steam rises from our cups
and we speak of things that have stopped,
of people who are gone... Outside,
rain is falling on a dusty road.