Come Casual

You, leaf, lying wilted and wasted,
You, blissful child, too soon taken
From a life you hardly tasted.

 What ignoble fate of essence
Unrequested and sorely rewarded,
Clothing your host in springtime’s attire,
Humming in concert to laud the caress
Of summer’s light breath, balmy and warm,
Howling to protest the blustery storm.

But was your voice heard?

Would the same melodious song
Sound just as sweet with one less soul
In a chorus one hundred strong?

Resplendent in your autumn finery,
So ruefully shed. Another will come
In your stead. And to what end?
May Heaven hold a place for you,
My friend.

                               rlkilgore

Comment to  rlkilgore@gmail.com

You, leaf, lying wilted and wasted,
You, blissful child, too soon taken
From a life you hardly tasted.

What ignoble fate of essence
Unrequested and sorely rewarded,
Clothing your host in springtime’s attire,
Humming in concert to laud the caress
Of summer’s light breath, balmy and warm,
Howling to protest the blustery storm.

But was your voice heard?

Would the same melodious song
Sound just as sweet with one less soul
In a chorus one hundred strong?

Resplendent in your autumn finery,
So ruefully shed. Another will come
In your stead. And to what end?
May Heaven hold a place for you,
My friend.

rlkilgore

Comment to rloykilgore@gmail.com

Comment to    rloykilgore@gmail.com

    Winds and clouds
    On whimsy pass
    As precious days
    Ordained may last.   

    Unknown fates
    Their lives compose,
    Just fleeting moments
    To strut and pose.

    Only memories
    Remain to hold
    The legacy
    To be told.
   
    One generation,
    At most two,
    Remembers clouds
    And winds that blew.

                  rlkilgore

Comment at:  rlkilgore@chartertn.net

Born naked and bleak in a cold north wind
To plunder gold from Autumn’s attire,
Winter comes with a skeleton-toothed grin
And icy minions on a ruthless hand.

Each Season finds itself, in order,
Victim of immutable fate,
But life struggles desperately to grasp,
Over nature’s will, another breath.

So Autumn leaps on back the wind
Like a rodeo cowboy rides.
Defiant spurs gouge bucking gusts
To wipe away the skeleton’s smirk
And let the interloper know
Leaves will fall when Autumn decides.

Comment to:     rloykilgore@gmail.com

What shadow slides across this earth
So randomly as to engulf
One soul but not another?
What cloud portends a destined storm
To hasten those unworldly throes
For one man but not his brother?

With each dawning, renewed light
Reveals the one, by chance, selected
To feel that day the shadow’s passing.
And with each evening, smug presumptions
grow more tempered by realization
Of time, after all, not everlasting.

Perhaps most fortunate are those
Who never feel the cold or rain
Or hear the thunder – for whom swift lightening,
When it strikes, inflicts no pain.

                                                 rlkilgore@chartertn.net

In the span of eternity,

Sixty seconds, sixty years,

Mere specks of no consequence

But for consciousness of those

Who perceive their own demise.

                                 rlkilgore@chartertn.net

We were best of friends, you and I.
Preoccupied, self-absorbed, I failed
To notice your insidious betrayal.
Oh, Sweet Time, what have I
Done to deserve your treachery?
You have stolen from me and
So continue. You took my youth,
And now seek my vigor, leaving
Desperate yearnings. You have 
Abandoned me adrift on a river
With a precipice approaching 
Where I cannot see the edge
But I can hear the roar.

                              rlkilgore@chartertn.net

Uproarious laughter filled our lovely party,
An ongoing din with no discernible source
Except one’s own voice.  The dance was crowded
With like kind souls who, feeling the beat, twirled
In unison while wings of time seemed furled.

Faces changed, their passing hardly noticed.
A fortunate, chosen few flaunted their gifts
And unearned beauty on a gilded stage
Surrounded by the rest who, unsung,
joined in refrain, “The night still is young”.

A chair, left like a door ajar before
A solitary empty plate and crumpled
Napkin coarsely tossed, as memorial
Stands, a lonesome cemetery stone
For one who was, in the end, alone.

And the dance goes on.

                            rlkilgore@chartertn.net

If death were as peaceful slumber
Sailing on a gentle sea
With cooling warmth from summer breezes
And lying there were she with me
To fill love’s idyllic dreams,
Ambrosia for eternity,
Then hasten coming of that day.

Futility begs a minute glimpse,
By means worldly senses lack,
To dispel musings wary
Of conjecture’s wishfulness
Gauging immortality -
But certainty is today’s possession
And there reason enough to tarry.

                                      rlkilgore

rlkilgore@chartertn.net

This was written for a friend who recently passed away.  I was able to visit him about three weeks before he died.