Drifts to Catch

(C) R.L.K.

1.
In the empty park
maples wave their silhouettes
at the red sunset.

2.
Sunlight moving, inch
by inch, and a single cloud
climbing on the wind.

3.
This clear April night
there's a moon in the sky and
a moon in the lake.

Just Today You Could Say

(C) R.L.K.

dawn's hid, wind's
    a chilly one;
      rained yesterday,
      raining today -
         streets fit to swim in,

no place for
   passers-by,
      but don't we all pass by,
      try
         to live

in these
   swift-fading days,
      hours,
      moments of wind
         and rain

Sialia Sialis

(A Short Syllabic)
(C) R.L.K.

"It is equally possible to take the bare present image

 as the worthless momentary picture in the whole temporal world,

 and as the true world among shadows. -- L. Wittgenstein

Blue upon blue:
bright birds curving
and gliding in
a noonday sky.

As in an Ordinary Month

(Tanka Times Three)

(C) R.L.K.

1.
Silvery moonlight
pouring down on the sand dunes;
Our summer's gone, but
there are nights when I can still
hear soft laughter on the shore.

2.
Cold and gray. Thin mist
surrounding gnarled old trees.
A small bird scurries,
shadowless under stratus:
here, then there, then gone away.

3.
Just one of those days:
sitting on the back porch with
little to do but
watch the clouds part and the sky
turn blue after the rain ends.

Going Back

(An Autumnal Syllabic)

(C) R.L.K.

Suddenly it
is November:
just a few dank
leaves remaining,
sheening yellow.

You walk down an
old street you walked
down long ago;
the corner store
is boarded up,

and vacant lots
make up more than
half of the block.
It's strange how things
can change, strange how

quiet it is
now, strange how that
lone small cloud can
drift across that
enormous sky.

Somewhere in Southern Indiana

(C) R.L.K.

Rain banging away at the depot roof,
Weary wanderers watching the window
For the first hint of headlights;
It's midnight and it matters little
Where anyone is going as long as the train
Will cut the distance down to a size
That even the loneliest traveler,
Now playing one more sad song
On the harmonica, can live with.

October Morning

(C) R.L.K.      


after the storm
    tattered
              clouds drift
  over an empty field --

     so the day
        begins:
chilly & wind-
  swept,      yet

beside a
  rickety fence
         a stray sunbeam
gilds a puddle of rain