Nightfall for Kevin Roberts

These are poems for my friend and fellow poet Kevin Roberts... Nightfall by Michael R. Burch for Kevin Nicholas Roberts Only the long dolor of dusk delights me now, as I await death. The rain has ruined the unborn corn, and the wasting breath of autumn has cruelly, savagely shorn each ear of its radiant health. As the golden sun dims, so the dying land seems to relinquish its vanishing wealth. Only a few erratic, trembling stalks still continue to stand, half upright, and even these the winds have continually robbed of their once-plentiful, golden birthright. I think of you and I sigh, forlorn, on edge with the rapidly encroaching night. Ten thousand stillborn lilies lie limp, mixed with roses, unable to ignite. Whatever became of the magical kernel, golden within at the winter solstice? What of its promised kingdom, Amen!, meant to rise again from this balmless poultice, this strange bottomland where one Scarecrow commands dark legions of ravens and mice? And what of the Giant whose bellows demand our negligible lives, his black vice? I find one bright grain here aglitter with rain, full of promise and purpose and drive. Through lightning and hail and nightfalls and pale, cold sunless moons it will strive to rise up from its “place” on a network of lace, to the glory of being alive. Why does it bother, I wonder, my brother? O, am I unwise to believe? But Jack had his beanstalk and you had your poems and the sun seems intent to ascend and so I also must climb to the end of my time, however the story may unwind and end. "Nightfall" was written around a month after Kevin’s death. Safe Harbor by Michael R. Burch for Kevin N. Roberts The sea at night seems an alembic of dreams— the moans of the gulls, the foghorns’ bawlings. A century late to be melancholy, I watch the last shrimp boat as it steams to safe harbor again. In the twilight she gleams with a festive light, done with her trawlings, ready to sleep... Deep, deep, in delight glide the creatures of night, elusive and bright as the poet’s dreams. "Safe Harbor" is a commentary on writing romantic poetry in the 21st century. Ophelia by Michael R. Burch for Kevin N. Roberts Ophelia, madness suits you well, as the ocean sounds in an empty shell, as the moon shines brightest in a starless sky, as suns supernova before they die ... My "Ophelia" was inspired by Kevin's "Ophelia."