All Those Defining Moments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Those Defining Moments
           by Tom King

My Mother showed me books when I was five
And answered endless questions about how the world works.
She read to me, took me places I had never seen before.
Played ball with the neighbor kids in our backyard
Tolerated my brother and me climbing every tree on our place,
Eventually all of them, even the really difficult brittle old oaks,
Let us run the woods, hang piratical sails from the swings
And roam the town till the well-remembered fireflies bid us to come home.

My first real friend, is a dentist and lives 3000 miles away.
We looked out for each other on the playground.
He was a lot bigger than me, and could speak another language.
I was a skinny kid with horn-rimmed glasses
With tape across the nose. I had patches on the knees of my jeans.
His house was where my Mom let me go to play.
I was allowed to walk there - my first ventures
Out in the town alone. Permission granted because I was old enough.

My friend the Colonel is retired from the Air Force now.
We used to run up and down main street in his VW bus
On Saturday nights. That was back in the heyday of our youth.
We went to movies and ate popcorn,
Burgers, fries and steak sandwiches at the Sonic Drive-In
At one end of the Main Street circuit. We watched the guys and their girls
Roll by in battered old cars. We talked about the war his father fought,
And looked at photographs he brought back from the Pacific.

My friend from my new school, I haven’t heard from in close to half a century.
He picked me up from among the cliques and gangs of old friends,
You find in new schools; no room nor time for including newbies.
A new guy too, we ran around in old cars and on motorcycles.
We explored Texas, ate at church potlucks a hundred fifty miles from home.
And he went to bat for me and talked the summer camp director
Into hiring on an inexperienced youth to haul the garbage,
And from there I learned new skills and embraced the world outdoors.

My sister doesn’t talk to me anymore.
It’s been a long time since she went to bat for me
And got me in our high school chorale.
My voice wasn’t that good, but I wanted to belong.
I had the lilt of a second bass, but not the range.
But she wore the choir director down,
She got me the chance to sing with voices better than mine,
And made for me another moment upon which to hang a life.

My brother's 49 years gone, but still I think of things,
I'd like to tell him, that I think he ought to know about,
In the time since Christmas night when we made plans for future Christmases.
He was gone the next day leaving a jagged hole behind
An unfinished defining moment we'll have to complete some day
When we reach that other world we both had in mind to go
If God were to be patient with us and He did a lot of scrubbing
Of our smudged and scruffy souls before He came.

I had other friends, other defining moments, but she is my last and best friend,
The one all those defining moments of my youth prepared me for;
The one who has made all the subsequent moments of our lives,
And defined the steps that we have taken together
The rest of the way along the long and dusty road.
With her, I have learned the myriad of things I had to learn,
Were we going to travel on to the end on this Earth and on.
Into the defining twinkling of an eye moment - my always and forever friend.  

© 2022 by Tom King