A Good Man Gone

A Good Man Gone

A good man leaves such a hole behind when he is gone.

So many could have beens.

So many should have beens.

So many would have beens.

Strung out like stones in our path

Waiting to trip us up and make us weep,

When we remember who he was,

And why we miss him.

Micah Joel King (1977-2006)

© 2019 by Tom King

April 30 - A Light in the Window

I was out among the hoi polloi all day today,
   Common folk taking care of business in their usual way,
Eating lunch down at McDonalds, at Wally World, on buses,
   Scarfing down a sandwich at the local Chik-fil-A.

Rain threatened, umbrellas bloomed across the parking lots,
   No one minded much, just hunkered down a bit, kept going
To the next place on the list, the next thing needing doing,
   Only a little dampened irritation showing.

By the time my feet were growing warm and heavy,
   I'd gathered supplies enough to hold us for awhile.
And turned for home, bags full, tasks all completed,
   Eyes searching along the familiar homeward mile.

The sun gone, a dusky light through silent trees along the lane,
   The familiar rooftop where the road will end in just a minute.
Another hundred feet or so and there it is, I see it now.
   The well-remembered window and the light left glowing in it.

© 2019 by Tom King

April 29 - A Man in Love

 

 

 

 

 

A Man in Love

Did I forget to tell you?
Did I forget to say?
Did I forget to love you
Sometime through the day?
Did I miss the moment love?
Did I miss the little glance?
Did I miss the gift I could have given?
Did I miss the chance?

Our time here's growing briefer.
Our opportunities for showing 
Our "I love you's" to one another.
Our time is softly going.
Help me catch the moment love.
Help more than just with glances.
Help me hear your heart my love.
I'm a man. I need more chances.

© 2019 by Tom King

April 28 - One Single Moment

One Single Moment

Once in a lifetime, comes a moment,
   You weren't even looking for,
When you stumble on a kindred soul,
    And walk together for a time along the shore.

One single moment makes the difference,
    One small voice will have its say.
One certainty in all the world you've found,
    One love that will not ever fade away.

To think I might have missed you,
     It's a thought to terrify.
The empty places I'd still carry,
     If you had only passed me by.

One single moment makes the difference,
    One small voice will have its say.
One certainty in all the world I've found,
    One love that will not ever fade away. 

Before I knew you I had loved you,
     I'd lain awake and wondered who.
Who you were; who I was missing. 
     And how I'd ever know when I found you.

But that moment made the difference,
    That small voice that had its say.
That certainty that in all the world I'd found,
    One love I knew will never fade away.


© 2019 by Tom King

April 27 - A Looming of Inquisitors.

No one ever expects the coming of the Inquisitors

A Looming of Inquisitors

I've seen it coming a long time now,
   In history books I read when I was a boy,
        In later years I read the warnings in the Scriptures.
Now I see it happening again in the papers and on the nightly news.
   The grim inquisitors are creeping back and in amongst us,
        Settling deep into the dark niches far up the halls of power.

Their numbers grow. They settle like fat, self-satisfied ticks
    Engorging themselves with the blood of the people our fathers
         Once made free and strong - sucking just a little bit of it;
Injecting in place of blood, the suspicious sweetness of empty promise,
    The temptation to self-righteous sanctimony
         And shallow belonging in place of honest solitude. 

The inquisition brings with it easy choices but only if,
    You don't think about the consequences of your choosing.
         If you pretend there are no consequences to be had.
The Autumn is coming against the looming of inquisitors,
    A shadow of something larger approaching glorious,
        On the horizon brewing in the vast and utter East.

 © 2019 by Tom King
     



     

April 26 - Solar Minimum

A Solar Minimum

I didn't know there was such a thing,
A Solar Minimum when the sun fails to birth
For a time on its face all those spots,
And cools in its ardor towards the Earth.

They tell me on the one hand don't
Pay attention to such things cause it's not
But a coincidence that the weather grows cooler
When the sun's face is cleared of its spots.

Some astronomers predict it could go on for decades 
This minimum could last for a while.
Certainly it'll mess up some government funding,
And the warming data alarmists hope to compile.

They say we've just 12 years - no more,
Computers model impending doom. 
In the wake of these prognostications,
Politicians spout even more gloom.

And in the meantime the merry old sun,
Beats down, just a little more gently,
And the publicans collect extra taxes,
While the rest of us worry intently.

Will our end be coming with fire or ice
As predicted on my television?
And if we're going to die one way or the other,
Do we need all that government supervision?

© 2019 by Tom King

April 25 - Next Stop "The Holy City"

Next Stop "The Holy City"

I used to walk alongside Old Betsy Road
On the abandoned railroad bed where once upon a time
The Old Betsy train rumbled up to the Keene Station.
With milk from the dairies, passengers at train time.

The rails are long gone. Ripped up leaving
Only rusty spikes as traces buried in the gravel
For us kids to find, evidence of an older world
And of the way our grandparents used to travel.

Locomotive, tender, passenger car and baggage
Not much of a train - a small engine, cars, two or three.
On a twenty mile circuit between two junctions
The Union Pacific and the TV&B.

My little one church town was the midpoint,
Of it's daily journey, dropping would-be preachers
At the station just down the hill from the college,
Along with missionaries, doctors, nurses and teachers.

The train used to approach the station there;
"Next stop, the Holy City," the conductor cried.
Until one day the train no longer came,
And the tracks were from the roadbed pried.

The Old Betsy road ran through our childhoods there,
But it's outlines fade as years to dust they wear,
The traces away, ever softer a nagging reminder
Of why once upon a time our fathers settled there. 

So much that's good gets lost as decades pass.
Memory dissipates and more's the pity. 
And we forget that once the conductor cried,
"Next stop...........the Holy City!"

© 2019 by Tom King

Drawing  © by Delbert "Sleepy" Read