Christmas Psalm

By Tom King © 2009

Christmas is my touchstone

It makes me smile at strangers.

It pushes me to reach out to family.

It fills my head with music.

It tells me I should at least try to be pleasant
To the harried clerk at Wal-Mart.

Even though I am over-worked and aching
Down to my very bones,

I pull it all together one more time; one more year.

And I am lifted up and taught to be
A better man than I had thought to be,

     because it’s Christmas

I Wonder What Stories She Tells

I know the stories I've told about my Dad

My kids do too – I've told them often enough.

But this morning while I was riffing on the old man's foibles

It struck me.  I wonder. Does my daughter tell this kind of stuff

                                                                 ………….on me?

I know the stories I tell about when I was a kid.

My Mom never knew some things I did back in the day.

If she'd known what I was doing she'd have been horrified.

I wonder, when my daughter tells her stories would they

                                                                   ……horrify me?

I know the stories I tell about my kids when they were young

My kids were there and, when I tell them, off they go to hide.

They complain when I tell stories; don't think they're all that funny.

I wonder if, when I'm not around, they tell their own side

                                                                    ….of those same stories?

My daughter is too much like me, quick witted, opinionated and stubborn.

Like me, she lives her own life the way she chooses, free and wild.

But now I'm old enough to look forward to the stories she once hid from me,

I expect that, when I hear them, I shall discover that she is truly a child

                                                                            ………...of mine?

© by Tom King

Just Us Two Against the Tide

Just Us Two Against the Tide
by Tom King

Just us two, holding hands against the darkling sea..
Fingers interlocked to keep the tides at bay.
Just the act of breathing seems a current pressing hard against our shins,
Threatening to knock us down and wash us clean away.

If Someone built the sea and time and tide - brick by tiny atom brick
Then standing in the rush of it, we'll cling tight together so we do not fall.
And if we are snatched away with the passage of the sea and time
I will not let go your hand. He may have us both or not at all.

Daisy's Brown Eyes Shining

Daisy's Brown Eyes Shining

She ate my sock again today
A gesture that was meant with true affection.
Brown eyes looked up at me for sign
That I approved what lovingly was meant.
And when I barked in my gruff style
She cut those dark brown shining eyes at me
A sadder thing you will not see
A dog's regret for unintended crimes.

by Tom King © 2010

Rose Day

Rose Day

by Tom King

I plucked a flower from God's garden.

   A precious rose it's edges dew drop lined

Not because she was what I deserved

   But because my God was being kind.

And for all the years that yet may come

   Unfaded, I will hold her close to me

Kept safely sheltered in my heart for yet

   Uncounted ages of eternity.

© 10/7/2013