Advent: Three Tanka

(C) R.L.K.

1.
Dawn in the foothills:
gold and blue, light and shadow
play upon the ground;
a small bird in a tall tree
sings its song into the wind.

2.

Fading afternoon:
ballet of light in the sky;
the old brook murmurs
an accompaniment as
I pause on the woodland path.

3.
Tonight a chilly
wind has cleared away the clouds
and now a thin old
moon, slightly tilted, shines a
little light upon the hills.

Passing Through

(C) R.L.K.

A dew-wet morning;
summer is gone and the cold
wind is full of leaves.
....

Streaks of bright yellow
on the willows by the brook --
a long way to spring.
....

After dark, after
a rainstorm, a hazy moon
drifts over the streets.

The Shape of an Afternoon

(C) R.L.K.

The mood is more than autumnal now; the day's
rain fizzles out, the wind chimes sound a faint
note. Alone on the porch, you consider how
softly the brown leaves have fallen and settled
on the gray stairs. You recall that once
this quiet hour would have marked the end
of a big day with many things done. But
that was then, and time, somehow, shrinks
as we get older. We don't know where it goes,
and now, what happens - rain fizzling, chimes
sounding, leaves falling - hardly happens at all.

What Is Where It Is

(C) R.L.K.

AUTUMNAL

there
on those distant hills
trees
rustling with reds,
yellows, greens -
and here
we stand
amazed at how huge the world is
and how it shines
in the silence
of the sun

JOURNEY

fallen leaves
flying
across the railroad tracks -
passing through,
just passing through

LATER

a long day
done --
now,
to just sit here
under the clouds
and nod
along with the willows
beside the pond

Daydrift

(C) R.L.K.

this morning our
world's a world in
half-shadow, a
world of soft sound

and leaf-flutter;
the lingering
smell of last night's
rain on wet grass

stirs memories,
and now and then
there's a brief tune
from the wind chimes

This Place, At Times

(C) R.L.K.

Dawn. In the garden,
the sunlight flings dew over
the young marigolds.
....

Afternoon shadows
struggle through garden walls, fall
across the roses.
....

All night long, the sound
of the rain softly falling
into the garden.

Some Sabbath

(C) R.L.K.

Sunday -
    after hard
      rain,
       sunlight
through the windows, trees
    glisten / between leaves,
        pieces
        of blue sky

....
   such warmth
      finally,
a summer day so boldly
     green,    awash
        with sun-
         shine, fine
    with light breezes
      through a window
open        to what's
                new    
....

dusky light
    lingering
  on the hilltops;

softly now,
    the rustling of
breeze-shaken leaves /

   along the shaded
     sidewalk,
       sounds
     of another day
       done

Quintet

(C) R.L.K.

as the morning bells ring
  mist from the river
    veils the birch trees
.

the sun lights up the room
  while the dust rag glides
    across the piano top
.

late in the afternoon
  a pair of sparrows
    pose on a telephone pole
.

at close of day
  the air shimmers
    just before the rain
.

all through the night
  the cottonwoods whisper
    while the rain slowly falls

Memorial Night

(C) R.L.K.

So many poems about the rain have been written
in a place like this: a sparsely-lit, leaky depot
where someone is waiting, silently waiting
for the next train to arrive, not caring
where the train is bound, for it is the departing itself
that matters -- one lonesome old town is like
any other lonesome old town when the rain has become
the sound and the shade and the shape of the world.

May Morning: A Haiku

(C) R.L.K.

Thin streams of sunlight
on the floor, and the window
full of young green leaves.

When/Ever

(C) R.L.K.

We speak of time gone by: a windy summer
evening, perhaps, with the moon newly risen;
the clamor of leaves on the trees along the path
that led to the hills; and the shadows that stretched out
on those hills when we would pause a while to look
down on the distant town and think that the world
held so much space - space enough for us
and all our thoughts of time to come. As if
space and time and the world made out of them
were made for us. Not so: we speak now and say
they are made for nothing, they matter little, as the moonlight
that brightened the night mattered little, but oh,
was beautiful, is beautiful, to speak of, now.

At Maple Lake - Spring

(C) R.L.K.

Not anything I made, not these brief things,

but things I saw about the natural world:

I wish that these could hold there, never be gone.

- William Bronk

birdsong drifts downhill;
the maples show a gauzy
green haze of leaftips
while a silver mist shimmers
over the lake at sunrise

Stepping Out for Another Evening

(C) R.L.K.

Day's work done, day's
last light draining
into the street.
Now, you pause a
moment, silent
on the weathered
stair, and wonder:
what is it that
remains of so
much coming and
going? Just the
wind, the motion
of memories?
Just that then. Just.

About Here & About Now

(C) R.L.K.

Here is where the wind has been known
to blow wildly for days, even weeks,
bringing rain with it: hard, slanting rain
from a low gray sky. Here is also where we are,
or sometimes are, for a mind may be elsewhere,
thinking, imagining, picturing something there,
arriving through the form of possible facts
at the form of a world that is, really, possible.
_____

Now it is evening; it is warm
and windy, and you have crossed
a wilderness of distance, from street to street.
A soft, small rain is falling, slowly,
into shadows blandished by the lamplight.

It is not quite spring, of course,
but no longer winter. You are weary
of thoughts of the past, and not ready
to think of the future, simply moving,
quietly, in a world somewhere between.

Upon the Path

(C) R.L.K.

Time is an intrinsic and measurable medium only in the realm of matter; in the realm of consciousness time is only a principle of perspective. - George Santayana

1.
February dawn --
Perched on a lamppost a crow
Guards the empty street.

2.
After a cold rain,
Thin beams of sunlight stream down
Upon wet awnings.

3.
One more old poet
Walks across the drifted snow --
Where did the years go?

Some Music, Please (Two Fragments)

© R.L.K.

1.
Noticing things:
the moonlight
spilling through the trees,

the train rails
disappearing in the distance,
the music of the words

chosen to say
what there is
to say,

    Days, moments,
    seconds,
    quickly fading.

2.
Piano practice tonight:
strange the way the notes become tunes
and start to sound familiar,

sad when they bring
thoughts of the past --
people, things… gone.

    The sun shines,
     the rain falls;
     some of us remain.

That’s philosophy for you,
there’s a lyric for the tune
everyone sings.