Beauty came in the guise of innocence
And wrapped her arms around our youthful days
Until the lust we recognized as love
Sang its final song and departed.

I remember it well.

The grass was smooth and soft under our feet
And the days were long enough that nights had only
Time enough to cool, and cover our passions.
And love came easily, as apples in a laden orchard,
Easily plucked and delicious but now indistinguishable
As birds flying in flock, flitting and sweeping,
So all blend together and become the whole.

Yet we remain, you and I. Perhaps
The language of an unknown tongue can answer why,
Or the sustained vibrato of a violin,
Or, perhaps, the silence of a falling snow.

                                                 rlkilgore

comment to    rlkilgore@chartertn.net

Inconvenient downpour interrupts

Play of the little fellow sitting

On the floor, pouting because

The swing outside hangs slack.

He sees through eyes of the moment,

Not knowing somewhere sits

Another boy whose father works

In the store where the handy man

Buys groceries with money

He earns mowing our lawn

Nourished by the rain.

                                   rlkilgore

comment at:   rlkilgore@chartertn.net

    Capricious winds
    Present their face,
    Swirl, then leave
    Without a trace.

    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.

                                              rlkilgore

                                      rlkilgore@chartertn.net

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, complacency
grows 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

rlkilgore@chartertn.net

                                                  rlkilgore@chartertn.net

rlkilgore@chartertn.net

                                        rlkilgore