The Poet in the Realm of the Philosophers

(C) R.L.K.

....
We could say a symbol is like a rock
Dropped in a pool, sending out ripples
In every direction. We could speak of the need
To search for a metaphor, words of power,
Whatever it takes when confronting reality.

....
Think of it: a summer afternoon when
The rain comes, and with it the smell
Of dampness and dust that links today
With yesterdays on quiet side streets.

....
It's a world of things, and things in the world
Can slip away, or change in familiar ways,
As when a blue sky goes gray on an autumn day
While you sit on a park bench, alone, considering
The fall of the leaves, the briefness of it all.

....
There are nights cold enough for snow, yet cloudless,
When the moonlight falls into place, in an old place,
And the sound of the wind is the sound of the world.

....
Consider a day in spring: the geese
Returning, the willows swaying together,
Merging green with green, the sun
Lingering a little longer...

Prose Poem

(C) R.L.K.

Keeping in time, there’s a song we might sing, ‘Tis Autumn, season of change, of loss and of gain, a mosaic of summer and winter and spring; blue haze in the air, rustling red yellow gold leaves relinquished, afloat, afloat, falling, falling then returning to the circling winds. Now come the mists in the morning, the quiet afternoons when the brook drowses in its stony bed, the caws of crows in the dusk, the harvest moonlight and the stars’ frosty twinkle. And again, the last creakings of the swings, the thin old brooms sweeping the porches, the roadside grasses ripening with seeds, the sunlight streaming down on the asters, the orange gleam of the sugar maples, the far hilltops shimmering; rare days, days of coolness and calm.