April 25 - Building on the Rock

Building On the Rock

The wise man builds his house upon a rock

  Instead of on the loose and shifting sands

The rock to keep the house from breaking

  Supports his dwelling in its solid stony hands.

But below the rock's a shifting granulated sea

  It's sand that floats this ark – roof, walls, foundation,

And when the restless Earth moves shifting in its bed

  It is the sand that moves and not this homely habitation.

And so we live upon this planet swinging in wild orbit

  Round a roaring sun, busily blowing itself up.

A rock to live on, floating in insubstantial space

  And yet we trust the frail illusory stone to hold us up.

© 2014 by Tom King

April 24 - Clarity Against the Blue

Clarity Against the Blue

Blue on blue, sky and dappled waters

   Every color azure-tinted; my boat skittering along

Its sails a bright rainbow in the showering sunlight

   Going somewhere, driven by the wind.

You set a backdrop, against which we live

   Our scattered little lives here. A stage

On which each bold decision stands stark, clear,

   Unquestionable for all the universe to see.

© 2014 by Tom King

April 23 - Vapor Trails

Vapor Trails

A boy dreams he could someday be

   A rocketman, splitting the sky

Screaming toward space, his titanium steed

   Bucking beneath him as it claws its way upward.

A young man takes a hard look at himself;

   His flat feet, his weak eyes, his empty pockets.

With all these things and no influence his,

   The sky is not within his reach; not in this life anyway.

The vapor trails left scratched across the stratosphere

   And blown away by winds that he will never feel

Through the seat of his pants and the chute on his back,

   Taunt, then drift away just like his dreams of flying.

So on the ground he flies as best he can

   Lifting others held down more than even he

A rocketman without the sky to scratch his name upon.

   And yet a life lived well, a flier just the same.

© 2014 by Tom King

April 22: The Hunting Instinct – A Tanka

The Hunting Instinct

A Tanka

On a snowy road
In the darkling green wood

Northern rain forest,
Coal black dog stands at point

Poised to startle rabbits.

 © 2014 by Tom King

April 21 - The Heart's Still Working

The Heart's Still Working
 A Haiku

A cottonwood swamp.

A pair of wood ducks take wing.

The dog and I jump.

© 2014 by Tom King