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.
