April 5 - Why Do We Dream of Magic

Why Do We Dream of Magic?

As long as Earth has been,
   Since the Garden even,
When we believed that awful lie,
   That we could be like gods,
We've wondered what our world
   Would be if we had wands to wave
Or secret words to say
   To make things happen magically.

But such power does not belong 
   To us. Such miracles are forged
In the arena of the angels and of He
   Who knit the universe together. 
Whose inward breath expands the fabric
   Of the cosmos and whose every exhale 
Ignites a myriad of stars and spins
   The living worlds into the void. 

So we invent our little stories of the faerie races
   Created with the talents we have been given;
And we make up tales of noble magic folk,
   That in this world could sadly not endure.
For such power corrupts we're told, but no,
    We can imagine magic wielded to the good,
But in the end dark men would come who strive
    For the corruptible crown that sorcery wears.

The universe has rules built into its very bones,
    It makes no allowance for a circumvention
Of the laws that make the the seas to fill with life
    Clothes the mountains and greens the valleys.
So, who are we to wish for magic when
    What we want is mystery, permanence and joy?
But should we take a quiet look around we'd see,
    In Him, the enduring awe and wonder that we seek.

© 2020 by Tom King

April 4 - I'm a Grandpa!

I'm a Grandpa

When I was a kid I wanted to be
   A pirate.
When I was a teen I wanted to be
   A quarterback.
When I was a young man I wanted to be
   A father (respected by my wife and kids).
When I reached middle age I wanted to be
   A success.
Now that I am old I want to be.
   A grandpa.

Silly me...

For a while there I despaired my kids
   Would never reproduce
For a while I was optimistic, thinking they
   Would slip up.
For a while I thought the family fertility
   Would overcome them.
For a while I hoped my growing collection of grandpa gear
   Would inspire them (not to let my preparations go to waste).
Now years later I've grandkids I hardly ever see in
   Grandpa mode.

Wistful me...

I gave away my canoes and boats years ago
   No fishin' buddies I thought.
I put away my banjo and harmonicas
   No little ones to teach (to make train whistle sounds)
I sold a lot of storybooks thinking
   No tousled heads I'd have to read to.
I moved away to take care of other business
   Than nurturing mini-me's.
Now I've got a few of them; scattered and far away from
   Grandpa

Foolish me....

It's hard to be so far away. We gave up way
   Too soon.
It's difficult to be grandpa by mail and there's
   Too little time on Skype
It's frustrating when you want to hug 'em and they're
   Too far away to hug,
It's hard not to pray for them these days
   Too much.
Now though, that's pretty much the only thing that I can do as
   Grandpa

Hopeful me...

But there's this, in God's New Earth I plan to build,
   A boat we all can sail away on.
And there's this, in the Earth made new, I plan to sing with them
   Songs the likes of which no one's ever heard 
And there's this, in eternity we will live and write together
   Stories of our adventures.
And there's also this, in those idyllic centuries I'll build
   A tree house - one for each of them but,
For now, even though it's hard, I plan to be the best
   Grandpa that I can be.
  
  
© 2020 by Tom King

April 3 - Quarantined

April 3 – Quarantined

The old hermit was summarily ordered

To stay inside the fence that bordered

His yard and his hut,

It seemed reasonable but,

The command made the old man feel cornered.

April 2 - A Sleeping Stone

April 2 – A Sleeping Stone

God help me I am weary

          Help me find a place just right

Like Jacob I would lie down

          On a stone to sleep tonight

It’s not just the arthritis

          That stabs me in my sleep

It’s a world that groans in agony

          For which at night I weep.

Why look with doubt on grace? Is it

          Too easy to leave so much control

Up to him who spun the universe

          And made of me a living soul?

God grant to me a sleeping stone where I

          Can rest from all the trouble in my head.

God help me trust you love me well enough

          Show me the stone that is to be my bed.

© 2020 by Tom King

April 1 - Lockdown

 Lockdown - April 1

Day 17:

I ordered a squirt bottle of WD-40 today.
Not that I needed 16 ounces of it delivered,
But mostly so I could squirt a rusty pipe.
From a distance of a couple of feet or so.
And not have to crawl under the cabinet
With a wrench and wrestle with a rusted nut.

That was my excuse! To be honest I suspect I just wanted
To see a stranger's face and hear an unfamiliar voice
At the door when Amazon delivers my stuff,
Or Walmart brings my groceries.
My Sweet Baboo and I are in the kill zone
For this rotten sneaky bastard of a disease.

Not much in our lives has changed for us really though.
We didn't get out much even before the lockdown.
Truth is we were already shopping 4 weeks at a time
And having groceries delivered to our door before.
I think it's the idea that we can't go walkabout
Among the crowds of unfamiliar faces.

Getting out is more about running with the herd,
Than it is that we need to go get some stuff.
We're kind of solitary people anyway and till now
We haven't moved much outside our self-constructed ramparts;
Physically moved beyond the circle of our online family and friends
To go for a romp outside the gates among the other herd beasts.

But we always knew we could if we wanted,
Join the herd down at the Walmart or join the streams
Of human cattle flowing like some kind of pyrocastic flow
Up and down the halls of our local shopping mall.
That we can be temporary members of the human drift,
And then come home and crawl under the covers on our sofa...

                                                                Safely home.

© 2020 by Tom King

Gone On Ahead

Gone On Ahead

By Tom King
(For Micah)

Going through my picture boxes,
I stumble across his picture ever once in a while.
The first thing I always do
Is sigh and gently smile at the memory it sparks
And laugh a little at some goofy
Joke or stunt he'd cooked up to make us laugh
Long ago when he was still with us.
He'd a talent for snatching humor out of
The gray spaces that often filled his cup;
A militant resistance to the silent struggle that was his.

Then follows for me, awareness
Of the empty space he left behind
Space he no longer occupies.
No more new stories of times when he was kind.
To some child, sad, lonely or frightened.
Of when he made an effort when it wasn’t necessary.
Of how he gave without benefit to himself;
Out of the goodness of a heart made so,
In the dark valleys and rugged paths
He walked with God for a friend.

His passing filled a church on a rainy day
With “his” kids and those who worked beside him.
His memorial was a celebration – smiles and laughter,
Not the funereal sadness you’d expect at such a time,
A bon voyage rather than a final goodbye.
I cannot imagine a universe without him.
Few of us could. It was more like waving after him
At a train station or from a dock as he boarded ship
On a journey ahead in time to a place, a moment
Where we who took a longer route would catch up.

And on that day when we all together
At last come home. And my son who has gone ahead,
Awakes to find that in his slumber he has reached
His journey’s end, and at that end found those of us
Who stayed behind have got to the station
In time to meet him and the One who brought us this long way.
And we who wept and laughed when we said goodbye,
Will weep and laugh and hold each other fast again
And in the sweet air of that reunion, celebrate with my beloved son
And with God's Beloved Son come to take us home.

© 2020 by Tom King

Corin the Piper

 

CORIN THE PIPER
           by Sheila King



CHORUS:

C    Em7  Am   Dm  Dmaj7    G
Corin the Piper lives here no more
Em            Am      D                       G
He and his mother left when he was four
C       Em7               Am       Dm         G
Some day there'll be music, same as before
        Em                      Am
But it won't be easy for Corin
C     G7          C
Lives here no more

    C     Em7           Am       D                           C
1. I sit here at the window, watchin' the children play
En                          Am             D                               G
They don't know I'm even here, but they come here every day.
C                      Em7         Am           Dm                       G
Sometimes the tears start fallin', and I wonder what they're for
Em          Am               C     G7        C
Until I remember, Corin lives here no more

CHORUS:

2. He filled my days with laughter, sunshine and song,
And Corin, the drummer, was seldom ever wrong.
Sometimes I hear him singing, and my heart starts to soar.
And then I remember, Corin lives here no more.

CHORUS:

© 1980 by Sheila King,
@ Alexandria, LA

* For the story behind this song/prophecy click on this link: Signs from God